The Sea Knows My Name
by Laura Brooke Robson
High School     Penguin    272 pp.         g
6/22     978-0-525-55406-6     $18.99

This intriguing novel about pirate queen Clementine and her daughter Thea begins by toggling between “then” and “now”—in Clementine’s girlhood, when she isn’t allowed to explore her scientific potential because of her gender; with Thea jumping from a whaling ship to swim three miles to shore; with an argument about whether the volcano on Valonia will erupt, killing everyone on the island. As the narrative progresses, the reader is able to assemble the timeline—how the sexism that stifled Clementine’s research and the pre-eruption tremor that killed her husband finally push Clementine to piracy just ahead of the cataclysm; how Thea is her reluctant accomplice until she runs away on a whaler with her crush Bauer; how Bauer rapes Thea, leading to her escape and the three-mile swim. Thea ends up in a ­settlement of Valonian survivors, including her childhood companion Wes, who’s trying to turn himself into the settlement’s doctor. A good portion of the narrative is Thea’s survival story; another portion concerns her unfinished business with ­Clementine, where Thea will have to decide once and for all whether she belongs on the side of the law or of her mother. The quasi–New England setting, with its own geography, mythology, and economy, adds another puzzle for readers to determine how it departs from our own world. An adventure story with an exceptional amount of emotional growth, this original creation will keep readers surprised and engrossed.

From the September/October 2022 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.