Broken Voyage by Lindsey Kinsella
Publisher: Self-Published
Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Mystery/Suspense/Thriller, LGBTQ
Rating: 3 Stars
Reviewed by AstilbeStranded in the Arctic, the international crew of an illegal whaler find themselves in a race for survival. Can they survive the cold, the sea, and, most of all, each other?
Pushed to desperation in a bleak world ravaged by climate change, Lora M’Bandi flees her homeland to join a group of unlikely outcasts aboard the whaling ship Livyatan. When an explosion rips through the vessel, the crew become shipwrecked deep inside the Arctic Circle—sabotaged by one of their own. Now, they must trek across the treacherous sea ice to reach dry land before the ice retreats—all the while with a traitor in their midst and fearsome predators stalking their every move.
Who will make it out of this harrowing tale of horror and survival?
The threat of death lurks everywhere in the Arctic.
I enjoyed how much effort the author put into describing the characters’ backstories and explaining how they ended up illegally hunting whales on the Livyatan. This isn’t an occupation I’d generally sympathize with at all, but their reasons for breaking the law made sense once I got to know the characters better and understood how the powers that be let them down at critical moments in their lives. It was refreshing to understand their perspectives and why someone would agree to hunt such rare species.
It would have been helpful if more time was spent developing the mystery portion of the plot. The explosion that destroyed the Livyatan was such a crucial moment in the storyline that I was surprised by how little attention was given to figuring out why it happened. Yes, the characters needed to flee from the sinking ship and find a safe place to stay, but once they were out of the life raft they had plenty of time to think about what just happened and who might have been responsible for it. Having more clues to work with would have been beneficial for me as a reader, and I would have happily chosen a higher rating if they had been provided.
The world building was strong and intriguing. I especially liked how certain plot twists were shared with the audience as clips from news shows or when characters shared the latest headlines with one another. It made those revelations feel even more realistic, especially when certain characters had strong opinions in favor of or against what was happening in the world and I had a chance to compare their reactions with those who lived much closer to those wars, pandemics, droughts, and other critical events. Not everything affected everyone’s daily lives equally even if they were genuinely concerned about what was happening thousands of miles away from home, so it was also nice to have multiple perspectives on some of these moments.
Broken Voyage was a wild ride.
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