Here are 82 books that Tress of the Emerald Sea fans have personally recommended if you like
Tress of the Emerald Sea.
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After a lifetime of reading fantasy, I have a career professionally writing fantasy! Whether it’s for animation, video games, or children’s books, crafting adventures in worlds of whimsy and wonder is a treat. Writing has sharpened my senses to recognize and appreciate well-crafted stories in all their forms, and the books on this list are some of the very finest romps.
Hilary Westfield has always dreamed of being a pirate, but the Very Nearly Honorable League of Pirates doesn’t allow girls to join them.
I know a thing or two about being the only girl in the room, so Hilary’s refusal to accept this is both relatable and aspirational. She takes rollicking adventure into her own hands as she sets sail on a journey with magic, pirates, and an endearing talking gargoyle.
Hilary Westfield has always dreamed of being a pirate. But the Very Nearly Honourable League of Pirates rejects Hilary's application because she's a girl, and her father ships her off to Miss Pimm's Finishing School for Delicate Ladies instead.
Expected to wear woollen dresses (petticoats not provided) and enthusiastically throw herself into activities such as Viennese Waltzing for the Eager Novice, Miss Pimm's is every bit as horrid as Hilary feared. However, a true pirate never lets dire circumstances stand in her way, and after a mostly dreadful first week, Hilary escapes and applies for a job with a freelance…
The Guardian of the Palace is the first novel in a modern fantasy series set in a New York City where magic is real—but hidden, suppressed, and dangerous when exposed.
When an ancient magic begins to leak into the world, a small group of unlikely allies is forced to act…
I’ve always loved magic and pirates. As I kid, I made up games incorporating the two. As a teenager, I wanted to read about them. But at the time, I couldn’t find anything that had both pirates and magic, so I decided to write one myself. As the years blurred past and the young adult book scene exploded, more and more books with pirates and magic have been published and of course, I try to read them all! I read them not only to study books similar to my own, but because I love them and I can’t get enough.
All The Stars & Teeth is everything I want in a seafaring adventure, with pirates, mermaids, sea monsters, and a world with seven unique types of magic – including blood magic.
Plus, a feisty and flawed female main character who will stop at nothing to save her kingdom. The world is lush and vibrant, the found family vibes give you all the feels, and the slow burn enemies to lovers is full of banter and tension.
Plus, it’s a duology so when you’re sad the book has ended, have no fear because the next one will be waiting for you!
“Fierce and unrelenting…Do yourself a favor and get lost in this beautiful book!” — Tomi Adeyemi, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Children of Blood and Bone
Set in a kingdom where danger lurks beneath the sea, mermaids seek vengeance with song, and magic is a choice, Adalyn Grace’s All the Stars and Teeth is a thrilling fantasy for fans of Stephanie Garber’s Caraval and Sarah J. Maas’s Throne of Glass series.
She will reign.
As princess of the island kingdom Visidia, Amora Montara has spent her entire life training to be High Animancer—the master of souls. The rest…
I always had an interest in pirates, being a SoCal native who went to Disneyland every year, and history was always my favorite subject in school. I went on to grad school and decided to make piracy my subject. My Master’s was about how the novel Treasure Island changed perceptions of piracy. I then continued my studies and earned my doctorate at King’s College London in 2017 about public executions of pirates and their cultural/legal representations in the British-Atlantic World. Since then, I have been featured on numerous podcasts such as History Hit,History Extra, and You’re Dead To Me, and on documentaries such as BBC’s Britain’s Rogues, History Channels Oak Island, and Netflix’s Lost Pirate Kingdom while publishing both academic and popular articles before my first book.
This book is pretty recent, having been published in 2015. In my opinion, it is the best book ever written about Atlantic piracy. Hanna dissects pirates to examine who they were and why they became pirates. What is unique about this work, is that he argues that pirates were just as significant on land as they were at sea. Without pirates, there would be no rise of a British Empire in the American colonies. This book was released during the last year of my doctoral research and I probably would not have been as successful in its completion without Pirate Nests!
Analyzing the rise and subsequent fall of international piracy from the perspective of colonial hinterlands, Mark G. Hanna explores the often overt support of sea marauders in maritime communities from the inception of England's burgeoning empire in the 1570s to its administrative consolidation by the 1740s. Although traditionally depicted as swashbuckling adventurers on the high seas, pirates played a crucial role on land. Far from a hindrance to trade, their enterprises contributed to commercial development and to the economic infrastructure of port towns.
English piracy and unregulated privateering flourished in the Pacific, the Caribbean, and the Indian Ocean because of…
Thomas never imagined wielding the ancient, sentient weapon, Nightshard. Facing betrayals, haunting memories, and divine adversaries as he races against time to thwart the chaos unleashed by the Lord of Tempests.
Nightshard unlocks incredible power, but with it comes dark whispers. Is he using the sword or is it using…
I am an early American historian who studies and teaches about America’s interaction with the world. I got interested in the Mediterranean when I started reading angry American screes against Barbary “pirates” who captured Americans and held them as “slaves” in North Africa. These events alerted me to a fascinating cast of American characters, many of them consuls on both shores of the Mediterranean who were involved in freeing the captives but also, I realized, were doing so much more to facilitate American commerce and shape national identity. They are the topic of my latest book!
All those American captives in North Africa prompted the United States’ first overseas wars: The First and Second Barbary Wars. In turn, they led to still more captivity, not to mention “the shores of Tripoli” part of the Battle Hymn of the Republic.
Lambert’s is the definitive account of these events, and it is short and sweet, even if it places them in the “Atlantic world” rather than the Mediterranean world.
Frank Lambert details America's nineteenth-century conflicts in the Middle East in The Barbary Wars.
The history of America's conflict with the piratical states of the Mediterranean runs through the presidencies of Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and Madison; the adoption of the Constitution; the Quasi-War with France and the War of 1812; the construction of a full-time professional navy; and, most important, the nation's haltering steps toward commercial independence. Frank Lambert's genius is to see in the Barbary Wars the ideal means of capturing the new nation's shaky emergence in the complex context of the Atlantic world.
I grew up in a time when it was nearly unheard of to be out in high school. This led to a very lonely and isolating childhood, with few role models and almost no queer fiction. I'm dedicated to making it easier for the next generation by providing joyful stories about queer people living their best lives. My stories feature proud queer people, where being queer is simply an aspect of their personalities and doesn't dominate the plot. People imitate art, and by providing positive examples of happy queer people, I hope to make the world a more accepting place, one story at a time.
From the moment I read the first page, I knew I would love this book. Its focus on adventure, romance, and whimsy captivated me, all with a cast of queer characters. While it was undeniably queer, that was never the focus of the conflict and was normalized in this fun fantasy world.
The chemistry between the love interests was sweet and joyful, and the prose was a pleasure to read, filled with humor and quirkiness but also true emotion—a great fantasy romance and adventure filled with queer joy.
"A frothy confection of sea-foam, young love, and derring-do." -NPR
A young prince must rely on a mysterious stranger to save him when he is kidnapped during his coming-of-age tour in this swoony adventure that is The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue meets Pirates of the Caribbean.
Prince Tal has long awaited his coming-of-age tour. After spending most of his life cloistered behind palace walls as he learns to keep his forbidden magic secret, he can finally see his family's kingdom for the first time. His first taste of adventure comes just two days into the journey, when their…
I have loved pirates since my first viewing of Mary Martin’s Peter Pan at age 5. My passion for learning about these outlaws led me to discover the hidden stories of women pirates—who have always sailed alongside their male counterparts yet never get the same glory. When I learned about Cheng I Sao, the greatest pirate who ever lived (who was a woman), I was so angry that her story wasn’t more well-known that I wrote a book about it! It has been a joy and an honor to share the stories of pirate women with the world and I have fully embraced my title of “crazy pirate lady.”
This new book is a great example of how women pirates continue to captivate and inspire us. Leigh Lewis has created a truly unique hybrid of a poetry collection and historical text which is unlike anything I’ve ever read before. It’s suitable for middle grade readers but enjoyable for all readers. I hope to see more from Leigh!
Move over Blackbeard and Captain Kidd! Did you know that the most powerful pirate who ever lived was a woman? Read all about her and more formidable females in this edgy, one-of-a-kind collection that combines poetry, fascinating facts, and pictures.
This wow-worthy book proves that women have been making their mark in all aspects of history even the high seas! Meet Ching Shih, a Chinese pirate who presided over a fleet of 80,000 men (by contrast, Blackbeard had some 300). Get the scoop on Anne Bonny who famously ran away from an arranged marriage to don trousers and brandish a…
A hundred years in the future, in a world where technologically enhanced bodies are valued above organic ones, Complete Life Management (CLM) is selling perfection in the form of the latest and greatest bionic model, the Apogee. As an elite runner and inadvertent spokesperson for the humanism movement, NYPD Detective…
I’m someone who has had a lot of pets in my life––dogs, fish, birds, turtles, tortoises––which means I’m also someone who has had a lot of pets in my life die, because the worst thing about pets is they don’t live as long as we do. I spent ten years writing Good Grief, but really, I’ve been researching Good Grief my whole life, ever since my first pet died. This list includes some classics I loved when I was a kid, and some newer titles that I learned about while researching Good Grief. All are wonderful and will be a balm during a hard time.
This is another great picture book about the death of a non-dog/cat pet––in this Mem Fox classic, the pirate Tough Boris loses his dear pet parrot.
This book is especially wonderful though because it shows how even the toughest of tough guys––and Tough Boris is a tough pirate––can absolutely fall to pieces when a pet dies. It’s okay to cry about an animal dying––even if you are a pirate!
The really beautiful thing about this story though is seeing how Tough Boris copes with the loss through making friends with a stowaway boy on his ship, because if I’ve learned one thing from my pets dying, it’s that you need the support and love of other people to help you through the loss.
Boris von der Broch is a mean, greedy old pirate - tough as nails, through and through, like all pirates. Or is he? For when Boris'' parrot dies, the tough pirate is reduced to tears'
I was born in Scotland. I grew up in Scotland. The family house contained no television, but it did contain a vast wealth of books, music and life. As a result, I learned to read at a really young age then set about working my way through my father’s myriad books. Stories, songs and Nature have always been my solace. In addition to being Scottish, the five books on my list are so innovative that they transcend mere words on a page; there’s a lyrical quality to the lines, music in their cadence, and animals (non-human ones – the best kind!) infusing the stories with deeper significance and subtext.
As a kid, I was hooked on the vast wide-open freedom of this story. The notions of hidden treasure maps, buried fortunes, stealthy smugglers and dangerous pirates affected me in profoundly positive ways, stimulating a wanderlust and a love of adventure.
Although Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson set this swashbuckling tale on the south coast of England and on the elusive “Treasure Island” in the Caribbean, it was inspired by his childhood experiences in Scotland, most notably trips with his dad to rocky islands and promontories (RLS’s father was a lighthouse engineer who designed and built many iconic lighthouses).
When my father took the five-year-old me to The Admiral Benbow en route to a family holiday in Cornwall, I was amazed to find that the inn was a real place. It felt bristlingly alive to me, for this was the same inn where Billy Bones had lodged with the treasure…
Penguin presents the audio CD edition of Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson.
Following the demise of bloodthirsty buccaneer Captain Flint, young Jim Hawkins finds himself with the key to a fortune. For he has discovered a map that will lead him to the fabled Treasure Island. But a host of villains, wild beasts and deadly savages stand between him and the stash of gold. Not to mention the most infamous pirate ever to sail the high seas . . .
I grew up in Washington State. My father and my uncles fought in WWII; one was captured in Africa, and one was the first to fly over the Himalayas. My father wanted me to be a missionary, but I was drawn to the world. I became a runner and loved the camaraderie in track and field, but I was uncomfortable in college and didn't like my coach. I wanted to go far away. I began my career as an aide in the U.S. Senate but left and became a journalist in Afghanistan. Each of these books is a story of courage, camaraderie, and survival. I hope you enjoy them.
Since 9/11, beginning with the slaughter of Daniel Pearl of the Wall Street Journal by al-Qaida in Karachi, Pakistan, in 2002, the kidnapping of journalists has grown to become a state-sponsored industry, mainly in the Muslim world from the Philippines to Africa, to the Middle East. Many survivors write about their kidnappings.
I especially liked Michael Scott Moore's book, in part because I know him, but more because he was held and tormented for three years in the desert by Somali pirates; yet forgives them to save himself. Moore is a German-American journalist and a surfer from California who also lives in Berlin. I loved his courage of diving, naked, from the deck of the ship he was on into the Red Sea, and swimming for freedom.
To be a kidnap victim is to live in a primal, sometimes reptilian world. I liked that he didn't hold back in telling…
Michael Scott Moore, a journalist and the author of Sweetness and Blood, incorporates personal narrative and rigorous investigative journalism in this profound and revelatory memoir of his three-year captivity by Somali pirates-a riveting,thoughtful, and emotionally resonant exploration of foreign policy, religious extremism, and the costs of survival.
In January 2012, having covered a Somali pirate trial in Hamburg for Spiegel Online International-and funded by a grant from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting-Michael Scott Moore traveled to the Horn of Africa to write about piracy and ways to end it. In a terrible twist of fate, Moore himself was kidnapped…
Cassie Fairhope longs for only one thing: to escape her mother’s tyranny.
Her plan? Seduce the young man, who is acting as innkeeper while her father is away on business, into marrying her. But Flint Hamilton has his own plans and they don’t include marriage, even to the pretty temptress.…
I confess to being a lawyer, having tried over 250 cases as a defense attorney throughout my career. I am always drawn to themes of oppression of the marginalized, who are our brothers and sisters among us. I am also a constitutional scholar and have taught as an adjunct professor of criminology for 25 years and have a strong belief in individual rights. I have a passion for colonial-era history and the outdoors. Combining those, I have canoed and kayaked close to 400 different “pioneer paddling” grounds in 21 states with a directed focus on locales where pirates plundered, patriots fought, and Native Americans struggled to survive.
I remember taking a charter fishing boat out from Beaufort Inlet when they found the Queen Anne's Revenge back in 1996, the flagship of the legendary Blackbeard, who was killed off Ocracoke Island in 1718. I also remember visiting Springer's Point and paddling “Teach's Hole” on the island, not to mention searching for his alleged treasure both there and at the site of his former home in Bath, N.C.
I have also visited White Point Gardens in Charleston, where Stede Bonnett and crew were hanged, and kayaked along the many sounds and inlets where these buccaneers used to plunder and pillage. From the time that I was a child, I have been enchanted with pirate culture, and this book offers historical accuracy that you can't find by watching Johnny Depp in the theater.
They were bold, arrogant, brutal. They strode the rolling deck of a ship more easily than the tame streets of a town. They were wealthy―some beyond the wildest dreams of the governors and kings who first supported them, then pursued them. They were the pirates of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and they terrorized shipping lanes and coastal villages around the world.
The pirates in this book sailed far and wide, but all made their mark on the Atlantic coast. Some made their home there, such as the notorious Blackbeard, who anchored his ship off Ocracoke Island and lived for…
