The Devourer

by Alison Ames

Overview

Adrasteia Dantes always knew she’d be a pirate captain. She just didn’t know she’d be seventeen years old when it happened.

Adra takes the helm of the Worldeater after her half brother Cameron attacks their father and steals a priceless treasure map. Now, the young captain has only one desire: revenge. She will restore her father’s honor by killing her brother, reclaiming the map he stole, and finding the legendary treasure at the grave of the first pirate king.

But when Adra discovers her brother’s ship destroyed and his crew dead—spare a sole survivor—she learns there’s something lurking in the sea that’s killing pirates, taking entire ships down with ease. Adra takes the surviving girl prisoner in hopes of tracking down Cameron, but no one will survive to see the treasure if they don’t find and stop the Devourer first.

If Adra wants to save her ship, she’ll have to strike a deal to help the Devourer reclaim something that was taken from her long ago. But it seems that their individual quests for vengeance might be leading them to the same end. . . .

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9798890030788
Publisher:	Page Street Publishing
Publication date:	01/07/2025
Pages:	400
Product dimensions:	5.80(w) x 8.30(h) x 1.50(d)
Age Range:	14 - 17 Years

About the Author

Alison Ames is the author of It Looks Like Us, a Junior Library Guild Gold Selection pick, and To Break a Covenant, a Colorado Book Award finalist. She lives in Idaho with her wife and a lot of animals.

Editorial Reviews

"[O]ne heck of a tale. [...] [Adra's] quest eschews common hallmarks of the revenge narrative. [...] Everything becomes funneled through Adra’s powerful and consuming anger, and Ames uses both the ship and the vast infinity of the ocean in which it travels as brilliant symbols for the central concept."

—BCCB, starred review

"A swashbuckling, Sapphic fantasy on the high seas."

—Kirkus Reviews

"A humorously antagonistic romance between the two pirate captains brightens a dark narrative exploring the things that happen when humanity is stripped from us [...]. [Adra's] swashbuckling adventures should be a first purchase for collections where pirate tales are popular."

—Booklist

“The perfect blend of high adventure and eerie, impactful horror, anchored by a standout main character and Ames’ glittering prose, The Devourer is one of my favorite reads of the year."

—Rory Power, New York Times bestselling author of Wilder Girls and Burn Our Bodies Down

From the Publisher

2024-11-09
A teen pirate on a quest for vengeance and vindication captains her own ship.

Adrasteia Dantes has spent the better part of a year chasing Cameron, her half brother, after he brutally assaulted their father and absconded with her birthright: a treasure map for the first pirate king’s grave. Fueled by her anger and need for revenge, Adra pushes her mostly female crew to their limits, restrained only by her soft-hearted quartermaster and best friend, Merrin Petra. But when their pursuit leads them to a string of four ships with the entire crew (save one mysterious, beautiful girl) dead under eerie circumstances—“drowned in dry air”—it becomes clear that the magic that once just trickled into this world from beyond the veil is now pouring in. Adra knows all too well the power of magic; she lost part of her arm in her first run-in with it. Torn between protecting her crew and exacting her revenge, Adra strikes a dangerous deal with the Devourer, the very creature they fear. Ames’ prose has moments of brilliance and her characterization of Adra as a complicated anti-hero is well done. However, the underdeveloped and anticlimactic delivery of the backstory will leave readers with an odd sense that this is the middle of a series rather than a stand-alone title. Most characters read white.

A swashbuckling, Sapphic fantasy on the high seas. (map, dramatis personae)(Fantasy. 14-18)

Kirkus Reviews