“Sea of Charms” by Sarah Beth Durst is her latest fantasy and part of a series of books set in a fantasy realm, each of which easily works as a stand-alone novel. Each one is a romance, and each one is filled with magic, magical creatures, flying cats, and lots of magical love. This novel focuses on a character we met in “The Enchanted Greenhouse,” Marin, a woman who has a magic sailboat and delivers supplies to the various islands that make up the Crescent Islands Empire.
We get an inkling of the magic that abounds in the story when, in the very first chapter, Marin rescues a sea serpent who then becomes her friend. We also learn about Marin’s heartbreak; the person she thought loved her, her fiancée Iovar, betrayed her and her parents. Since then, Marin has been unable to trust anyone besides her parents. She sails alone because she wants to be alone. She loves the sea and sailing and doesn’t want to share it. But the sea serpent, whom she eventually names Perri, befriends Marin. And there’s no easy way to shoo away a huge sea serpent who is bent on accompanying you.
In all three books, a defining part of the action is the revolution that is happening in the Crescent Island Empire. The emperor has hoarded all the magic of the realm and forbidden anyone except royal sorcerers to perform spells. Even the huge library of magical books in Alyssium, the capital, was restricted to sorcerers. Anyone performing illegal magic was severely punished, as we learn in the second novel. However, hoarding the magic at the capital has had dangerous consequences for all the other islands. There are unchecked magical storms that wreak havoc everywhere as well as other repercussions. The revolution seeks to reclaim magic for all.
After Marin rescues Perri, who then becomes her friend and companion, the action skips forward two years to the time of the revolution. Marin travels to the capital, to the Music Conservatory of Alyssium to deliver a mayharp, a musical instrument requested by one of the Grand Masters at the academy. Dax, one of the students there, has befriended Marin and Perri, and he’s there at the dock when they arrive. We sense the attraction between Dax and Marin, but she’s also determined to not have feelings for anyone after the betrayal she experienced.
After that delivery, Marin and Perri set out for the Great Library of Alyssium, where she is to deliver a crate of books. But the violence along their route is unsettling. The revolution is in full swing. Once at the library, the head librarian comes to see them. She asks them to make a delivery of a statue to an island known for its greenhouses. This is the statue of a librarian who performed illegal magic and was punished; she was turned into a wood piece of art. Marin delivers the statue to the island of Belde. That is the basis of the second book in the series, “The Enchanted Greenhouse.”
After that delivery, Marin and Perri eventually return to Alyssium with a mission. The danger is greater as the revolution is resulting in more chaos and terror. When Marin sees Dax, she tells him that he needs to leave Alyssium for a while. But Dax has been kept in the dark about the political situation, as those around him are concerned with his working on his great opus, concentrating on that and nothing more. So he’s shocked when not only do his colleagues tell him he should leave, they ask Marin if she can take them as well. She reluctantly agrees.
When his colleagues depart on an island that one of them is from, they assume he will stay with them there. But Dax is enchanted with life on the sailboat. He’s enchanted with Ree, the wax myrtle that had been enchanted into a sentient being, and whose desire its whole life was to be a sailor. The other musicians pressure Dax to stay with them and continue to work on his opus. Marin makes sure that Dax understands that he has the power to make the decision about whether to stay on the island or continue sailing with her.
When Marin asks Dax to pretend to be her boyfriend at a festival on her home island, he jokes and tells her how, in ballads and song, that trope almost always ends. (We know how that trope ends.) It’s a trope within a trope. But the attraction between Dax and Marin is real, it’s just that Marin isn’t prepared to trust anyone, and she doesn’t believe that she deserves to be with someone of Dax’s obvious talent and status. He will be a Grand Master of the observatory; he’s famous. After many trials and tribulations, magic dragons, krakens, a magical storm, and many miles of sea traveled, there’s the happy ending we know to expect.
Durst explains that with so much hate in a world that seems to be worsening every day, she wanted to write something that would help readers escape. But even with that goal, she includes a bit of her feelings about current events in the narrative. The revolution, the greed of the emperor who wants all magic for himself, all the books locked up, only the wealthy to reap the riches of the Empire, all seem a mirror, albeit a magical mirror, of what we see in the news daily. Marin thinks, “Why can’t governments just…not be shitty in the first place? They were made up of people. Why couldn’t they just care about other people? Just a little bit? If they did, then they’d make reasonable laws that helped everyone…”
And another mirror image deals with the library. The head of the Great Library of Alyssium tells Marin that “people who have power are often afraid to lose it, and books are the greatest power — they are the culmination of many lifetimes. They grant access to worlds, dreams, thoughts, and wisdom beyond what a person can possibly experience in the span of their own years. Whoever has books has the power to be greater than themselves, to connect themselves to all who have come before and draw strength from them.” Doesn’t that clearly explain why some feel the need to ban books, books which connect us all together instead of driving us apart with the vacuous fears and hostility that is instilled in people through fear-mongering and social media.
But the politics is a minor part of this lovely story of love, of adventure, of caring for those who are different from us, and of being brave enough to overcome our own doubts and fears to embrace love. Flying cats, dragon love, an adorable sea serpent, a sentient ball of wax myrtle, and a silver-skinned heroine are waiting for you in the blue-edges pages of this beautiful book.
This review was first posted on Bookreporter.com.