Review: The Red Siren, M.L. Tyndall

When her mother died and her father forced her sister to marry a horrible man, Faith Westcott abandoned her trust in God and set about placing trust in herself, becoming a female pirate known as The Red Siren.  Dajon Waite, a lieutenant in the King’s Navy and captain of his own ship, is set on catching pirates, especially The Red Siren, who stole his ship five years ago and turned his life into chaos.  When Faith’s father asks Dajon to take his daughters as wards while he is gone, something has to snap.

Before I begin this review, I’d like to say that I’m not a Christian, although I was raised Catholic and most of my family is. Had I known this book was Christian romance, I wouldn’t have requested it from the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program.  I didn’t look closely enough at the publisher’s website and know better now.  For the perspective of a Christian, Amy’s review is wonderful.

Actually, I’d have found this book vastly enjoyable were it not for what were, in my opinion, a few of those Christian elements.  I read plenty of books with Christian characters and which deal with questions of faith, and none of that bothers me, but this one seemed a little preachy and almost suggests that without faith in God, a person cannot succeed or be happy in any way.  It’s a fatal flaw of Faith’s that she has lost her trust in God, but I couldn’t figure out what would have happened differently had she kept her trust in God.  Would she have not resorted to piracy, never met or interested Dajon, and ended up marrying the creep?  I think, maybe, if I were a Christian this wouldn’t bug me at all, so I’m chalking this part up to just my lack of faith. It’s a Christian book, so it’s not catering to the doubting.

What did really get to me were some supernatural phenomena that had me rolling my eyes and knocked me out of the book completely.  I’ve always been taught that it’s a matter of trust.  God isn’t going to send a lightning bolt down to save anyone because it doesn’t work that way; you have to trust.  Even my mom found that part strange and as I said, she’s Catholic.

That said, I really liked the story and I really liked the characters.  I liked the role reversal between the lady pirate who doesn’t follow the rules and the law-abiding captain; it’s a definite change from the dangerous man/rake stereotype in romance.  The book ends in a little cliffhanger and I really want to know what happens.  I just don’t know how much I can take of the preaching in order to get there.  I probably shouldn’t be reading this type of book at all and I acknowledge that, so I hope others can enjoy this book more than I did.  I do think that if you are religious and enjoy reading about people embracing their faiths, with a great story and romance attached, this would be a book for you.

Buy The Red Siren on Amazon.