Book Review: Deep as the Sky, Red as the Sea

Deep as the Sky, Red as the Sea
by Rita Chang-Eppig
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Please note this is NOT a middle grade, or young adult book. It may look like one on the cover, and read like one in the blurb but it has prostitution, violence, sex, etc. i it. Nothing worse than Sarah J. Maas has in Court of Thorn and Roses; but it should be listed as Teen, in my opinion.

Onto my review...

Piracy in Asia looked a bit different than you might think… or at least according to Rita Chang-Eppig and her leading lady in Deep as the Sky, Red as the Sea.
We meet our lead gal as she is in a conundrum. Her husband has just passed and she needs to find a way to hold onto the captaincy of her ship, a small fleet, and protect those she loves on board her vessel (and keep herself alive as well). Thus she makes decisions that are justifiable; but perhaps not always in everyone's best interest. Although it is worth noting she is a pirate after all...
In no ways is our leading gal a hero; but she's not a villain either. Instead she is the perfect kind of morally grey character most of us are in life. We make good decisions, we make bad decisions; and overall we just have to keep on moving to stay alive. This is the main theme and take away from Chang-Eppig's story. Sometimes it's just about surviving.

I loved the enduringness of these characters, the detail and narrative of the story was also excellent. Although near the end I was kind of tired of our crew and certainly of our leading gal. You can only hear someone express regret so many times before you lack empathy, sympathy, or even any emotion towards them. And so I think a quicker ending would have served this book and our leading lady better.


Please note: I received an eARC of this book from the publisher via NetGalley. This is an honest and unbiased review.

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