Do you ever have a book you wish you could go back and fix before it was published? That's Heart of the Sea. It's got some cool and interesting ideas, decent worldbuilding. Decent characters. But there are two things that ABSOLUTELY drove me crazy throughout the book.
First: The prophecy makes no sense. The little vignettes before sections of the novel are well written and interesting. And through the first half or two-thirds of the book the characters allude to the prophecy that doesn't entirely make sense. But at that point you don't expect it to make sense. The real problem is when the characters start actually talking about the prophecy and it still doesn't make any sense.
So, her sister made a deal with darkness. But is now on an island protected by the light. That darkness can't step on …but somehow has her trapped there. Except for Britt and the men Weylan sent who can walk on it just fine even though they're not any part of the prophecy. And Nerissa wants to save her sister….from be protected by the light or from this island cursed by the light? And breaking the curse means…defeating the light? Which would seem to help the darkness. Except it's not because releasing the curse protecting people is good. But choosing the darkness means the curse falls? And Crow's mother died…which started a war between light and dark? That wasn't already going on anyway by their very natures? How did she manage that? And it resulted in an island cursed by darkness…how? Except that it's also protected by the light….what? How does any of this make any sense?
It took five different conversations between the characters to finally figure out: that Crow's mom did something (possibly taking him out of the land) and there was three days of some sort of war between light and dark in which we know nothing of what happened except at the end it resulted in the Light protecting people by trapping the Darkness within the borders of the land (which is not actually an island like I thought all along). So it's cursed because that's where the darkness lives. But the people in the land are also protected because they're separated from the darkness, almost like being in a different dimension. And when Nerissa released the Darkness from her sister….it somehow broke the curse. That part isn't explained well. But now that means the darkness was released out into the rest of the world. So that's actually bad.
The second thing, which drove me even crazier than the first, was how badly edited the narrative is. And this as two parts.
Bad writing the first: there is no context to hardly anything. It starts off with too many foreign words without context and mysterious things that confuse more than evoke curiosity. It's grounded in the physical reality of the scene which helps. But then her inner monologue is referencing things the reader doesn't know about which continues to veer toward confusing rather than intriguing. Who is Lucia? Who is Nerissa to the queen? Why does Lucia's age matter? Who is her mother and why did her mother leave? Where is her father? Why is her sister gone? How? Save her sister from what?
Chavis also draws a lot of cultural differences between the lands or people but doesn’t explain them so the reader doesn’t understand why they matter or how they contribute to the story. The lack of context also prevents reader engagement. I’m not invested in Nerissa's quest to save her sister because I know so little about any of it. How is she going to save her? Why should I care? What happened that her sister got…whisked away….kidnapped…ransomed? And I have the same problems with Crow? Why does he want his kingdom back? Who will he be? How does he get free of Weylan? And they're bound now. What does that mean? What is it like? How does it manifest? How does it change the story? If their bond is broken why isn't he free already? There's just too many things I should understand about the story in order to care about what's going on or about these characters.
And yet the idea of it all and the story around these problems was good enough that I kept reading. I will grant that it was explained in the end. But gradually and late in the game and would have been much better if I understood early on.
Bad writing the second (that should have been fixed in editing): so many inconsistencies! People are facing one direction talking to each other then suddenly moving from the other side of the room. They turn their head to look at one character but then are looking down at a character behind them. In one instance she's standing with her crew, turns her head…then has to go back toward them? When did her feet move? When did they move? And then she's running toward a clearing? Even though without moving she left them by a muddy river? How did Claudette and Crow get tied up? Last chapter they were running away and now they're tied up? What? In this same vein, the scenes introduce conflict as if it was interrupted from a previous scene, like when there's switches in point of view. But it's actually brand new conflict that comes out of nowhere, totally unrelated to the scenes before. New emotions. New obstacles in the story we've known nothing about. It feels disjointed.
I think I would have enjoyed the story if the lack of context and the persistent disconnects in the physical movement of the characters hadn't continually jarred me out of the story and bothered me so much.