Raven and crew escape their captivity by her dastardly siblings, mostly with some bruises, cuts and sore muscles. But their navigator Ximea fared far worse. She’s unconscious, has broken ribs, and may be at death door. Fortunately, a renowned healer lives on a nearby island. Unfortunately, The crew arrives only to find that the healer has a strict NO SERVICE TO PIRATES policy and lots of guards to enforce it. Getting a waver to this policy turns out to be as big a fight as the one with Raven’s brothers.

Meanwhile the unconscious Ximea needs constant watching in case she regains consciousness. As they sit with her, two different crew members tell tales of their ancestors to an unconscious audience. These tales, illustrated in a different style from the rest of the book, comprise two of the three love stories promised in the subtitle and give the reader a bit of the storytellers’ backstories. ( )

This volume is shorter than the previous two, which made the ending a bit shocking since I expected at least another 30 pages. But despite being short, it still packs a wallop. The story focuses on Raven's quest to heal Ximena, who was badly wounded in the last volume and has been in a coma since.

I love this title. Raven is flawed. She's impulsive, brash, acts without thinking, and is more likely to use violence than words to resolve conflict. I love that. I really love that a female of color lead is allowed to not be perfect and is not the smartest or most capable person in the story. She's deeply relatable.

You also get a nice story in a story with the story of how Sunshine's parents met.

But -- too short! GAH! ( )

4🌟

"You hit me in the boob!"

Raven fights tooth and nail to get Ximena back on her feet. The love triangle gets intense. We get some interesting perspective of Native Islanders. And I just want all of them to be safe and happy.
( )

Ximera was hurt badly by Raven's brothers and Raven is at her wits end. She has to find someone to fix her best friend (or more?) before Ximera dies.

There is a lady on an island who can do it, but she doesn't deal with pirates. Raven doesn't like that and basically goes Apocalypse Now (with less killing) on the island and brings the Lady back to save Ximera.

Some of the other women, including a slightly jealous Sunshine, also tell and unconscious Ximera stories. Raven does too. I really liked hers.

Overall I thought it was another good TPB in this series, and I can't wait to read book four. ( )