Review of The Eye of Leviathan by M.A. Carrick

I was a huge fan of M.A. Carrick’s Rook and Rose trilogy, starting with The Mask of Mirrors. So when I heard this duo had the first book in a new series coming out, I ran to request it over at NetGalley. Thanks to Orbit for providing a review eARC!

It’s the turn of the seventeenth century, Spain. Except this is a Spain in a world where faeries are real, and if you sail beyond the Pillars of Hercules, you might end up in a faerie ocean. Estevan is a young man with a secret: he’s actually a changeling, which in a Spain in the grip of the Inquisition is a death sentence, or worse. Estevan isn’t any normal changeling, however. He elected to take mortal form to investigate how mortals have been conquering The Sea Beyond. He did this with the help of a mortal woman, who gave up her daughter. But that Hungry Girl is alive and … somewhat well? … in the Sea Beyond, and her story and Estevan’s may be on a crash course….

Look, I am nothing if not predictable: I am just not an ocean girlie! Put me on a ship, and I yawn. I just played my first Assassin’s Creed game, Origins, in over ten years because Black Flag was a dealbreaker for me, and I’m watching people play the remastered edition and realizing I was right. So I was less than thrilled when I realized how much of this book would be spent on the ocean, or talking about sailing, even a fae version thereof.

So you might understand, then, how pleasantly surprised I was to be engrossed by this narrative. Carrick just has such a great way of writing their characters. Estevan is arguably an antihero in many ways (he is, after all, a kind of double agent). Yet he’s so sympathetic, and Carrick explores the conflict between his higher allegiance to his people and his more intimate connection to Theresa and his human siblings.

I similarly enjoyed the growth of the Hungry Girl over the course of the story. She begins without much agency, almost a pitiable figure. However, she gradually develops more guile, quickly learning how to exploit both the fae systems she has grown up within and the human systems to which she is exposed. Her confusion and relative lack of knowledge is a nice foil to Estevan’s knowledge—though both are, in many ways, a fish out of water.

The rest of the cast is far less engaging, sadly, with most of the characters relegated to stock roles that push the story forward. Honourable mentions go to Diego, who gives us a glimpse into the life of a faerie captured and transformed into a mortal servant, and Erauso, who is a very complex character in terms of identity and goals but does not (in my opinion) receive the page time to truly allow us to know him.

Indeed, it’s perhaps a failure on my part, but I just keep comparing this to The Mask of Mirrors and finding it wanting. That’s in part, as I noted above, due to the more marine-centric narrative. But I think it really comes back to the characters. I don’t need (or even particularly want) a romance between two protagonists … but I needed there to be something more than Estevan’s quest or the Hungry Girl’s attempts to survive as she is buffeted between crosswinds of fortune. But maybe I should try to let this story stand on its own merits; comparison is the thief of joy!

So it comes down to this: The Eye of Leviathan is an intriguing new fantasy novel, with an interesting alternative history angle, from an author duo I highly recommend. It might not be your cup of tea, but then again, it might be very much more your cup of tea than it was mine.