I received this book for free from Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Don't call this mermaid "little"—call her "captain," unless you want to walk the plank.

Mary is in love with the so-called prince of Charles Town, except he doesn't love her back. Which is inconvenient. Since she's a mermaid, being brokenhearted means she'll—poof!—turn into sea-foam.

But instead, Mary finds herself pulled out of the sea and up onto a pirate ship. To survive, she joins them. But Mary isn't willing to just sing the yo-ho-hos. She wants the pirate life, all of it, and she's ready to make a splash . . . by becoming captain. But when Blackbeard dies suddenly, Mary has a chance to become so much more: Pirate King . . . or Queen. She won't let anyone stop her—not Blackbeard's cute son, not her best friend from back under the sea who's having a bit too much fun with his new legs, and certainly not everyone who says she can't be a pirate just because she's a girl.

She may not be the best man for the job, but she'll definitely prove that she's worth her salt.

Short and Sweet Review

We’ve all heard the story about the Little Mermaid but in this version she’s a pirate. After Mary gets her heart broken she miraculously avoids being turned into foam and she disguises herself as a man and joins the crew of a pirate ship. Mary becomes friends with Tobias and he happens to be the son of Blackbeard. When Blackbeard dies a competition forms to find the next Pirate King and Mary plans on becoming the next Pirate King or Queen. On the other hand Jack wants to marry his love Anne but she’s already married, to get her husband to divorce her Jack needs a lot of money, which is how he and Anne join Mary’s crew and it doesn’t hurt that he and Mary are cousins.

Out of the Mary series and The Lady Janies trilogy I think this is my favorite book. The book starts with Mary on land thinking she’s going to get married but her man is actually getting married to someone else. Mary then ends up on a ship and she works her way through the ranks. Mary is disguised as a man and only Tobias knows that she’s a woman so when the opportunity comes for someone to become Pirate King, Mary ends up admitting that she’s a woman and it goes well because she still has a crew but she’s definitely under estimated and her former pirate captain has a thing against women and is trying to take her down. Mary has a lot to prove, she wants to prove that women can be pirates and that anything a man can do a woman can too. To win the competition the pirate crews have to bring back the most treasure so the groups look for treasure and it just happens that Blackbeard left a large treasure for Tobias so the crew sets off for that. Mary’s dad the king wants Mary back in the sea so he also puts a time limit to see if she can complete the quest of becoming a pirate queen. I did like the relationship between Mary and Tobias, they start off as friends and I like that he kept her secret. We see their relationship go from friends to something that could be more than friends, but they were focused on the task at hand and he didn’t mind that she was a mermaid. Jack and Anne were a fun couple to watch too, Anne was very outspoken and Jack basically looked at her with hearts in his eyes all the time. The ending was great and I like the retelling.

Overall, I loved all of the elements that this story had to offer. Mary made a great pirate and she had some great companions on this quest to find treasure and become pirate queen. This was a fun adventure and like most of the books this trio writes it had a strong female main character who was ready to rewrite history in her way. I would recommend this book if you’re in the mood for a fun book full of action and humor, and don’t forget the pirates!