A Daughter of No Nation

November 9, 2015
This fast-moving sequel to Child of a Hidden Sea puts free spirit Sophie Hansa back in the middle of tense intrigue in the alternate dimension of her birth. Sophie, born in the fantastical land of Stormwrack but sent away to live with a San Francisco family, has largely given up her life as a promising biologist in hopes of returning to her birth world to discover its secrets. Now the call has come from her long-lost father, Clydon Banning of Sylvanna, to meet his household and business associates. In return, he will drop his legal charges against her mother and allow their broken marriage to be dissolved. Sophie struggles to get accustomed to Stormwrack’s seagoing culture, slavery, and magic. Worse yet, she fears her father may be a sociopath. But nothing can keep this intrepid woman from investigating secrets, and soon she has Cly interested in using forensic science to help move cases through Stormwrack’s clogged courts. Her first case: finding out who deliberately infested Cly’s lands with invasive Throttlevine plants. Dellamonica expands on promising worldbuilding and delivers a fantasy tale of messy family politics and social justice with plenty of action and suspense.

October 1, 2015
A fantasy adventure set in a seafaring world full of tall ships and political intrigue. Sophie Hansa thinks she's ready to go back to Stormwrack. She's been working out, practicing her knot-tying, learning self-defense. So when Garland Parrish, the captain of the Nightjar, shows up to take her there, the only immediate problem is how guilty she feels about leaving her adoptive parents at home to worry. Of course, as soon as she's back in the alternate, magical world where her birth parents come from, problems start multiplying. The plan is simple: Sophie goes to visit her birth father, Cly, and he agrees to let her birth mother out on bail until their court case is resolved. But nothing in Stormwrack is simple, and soon Sophie; Parrish; her teenage half sister, Verena; and her genius adoptive brother, Bram, are caught up in another web of intrigue. This second book in the Stormwrack series picks up a few months after the end of Child of a Hidden Sea (2014), further complicating Sophie's relationships and her view of the world she doesn't quite belong to. Blunt, emotional, and desperate to bring her scientific skills to bear on the mysteries of Stormwrack, Sophie is an engaging heroine, and Stormwrack is a rich world that's well worth exploring. Some of the problems driving the plot are solved a little too easily, but the whole thing moves quickly enough that it hardly matters. Fans of Stormwrack will welcome another chance to set sail with Sophie.

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November 15, 2015

Picking up soon after the events of Child of a Hidden Sea, this novel has Sophie Hansa longing to return to the world of Stormwrack. She had barely scratched the surface of this world, which might be Earth in the future or an alternative reality. Whichever it might be, Sophie wanted to learn more about it. But when she does return, her complicated family situation gets in the way of her naturalist explorations. Her birth mother is in jail because she lied for years about Sophie's existence, and the only way to get her out is to make nice with her birth father, a man Sophie doesn't know if she should trust. VERDICT Less focused than the series opener, this second outing entertains, but the protagonist's Holmesian abilities to outwit those around her grate over time. While it is satisfying to see more of the Stormwrack archipelago, Dellamonica's story lacks momentum.--MM

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