Deep as the Sky, Red as the Sea by Rita Chang-Eppig is about a woman pirate, Shek Yeung, seeing her pirate husband, Cheng Yat, die. It’s also about her journey afterwards. Shek Yeung and her husband board a Portuguese ship in hopes that they can claim the ship and crew as their own, to add to their numbers. When they board the ship, they end up in an all out combat with the Portuguese who seem to know that Shek and Cheng were going to attack them.
During the battle, the Portuguese are seen as a worthy enemy in battle and Cheng Yat dies in combat. Shek Yeung knows that she will need to act swiftly to save herself and the rest of her pirate crew. As she and the rest of the crew retreat, she decides that she doesn’t have time to mourn the death of her husband and that her wellbeing is hanging by a thread because she is a woman pirate leader. When her husband was alive, they worked well together as “muscle” and “strategist” but now that he’s gone, she fears the crew will not want her in a leadership role.
She decides that she will marry her husband’s second in command, Cheng Po, and will bear him a son and heir, so she can keep her half of the fleet. Shek Yeung is desperate for the power she has after spending so much of her life not having control over anything, including her life.
Shek Yeung wants to maintain control over the fleet because she knows that she has what they need to survive. She also knows that she would need to be cooperative with the other leaders of the pirate alliance if she wants them to survive as she fears there is a larger threat coming for them.
The Chinese Emperor in the Qing Dynasty has launched an all out war against the pirates. The Europeans are tired of losing ships, money, and men to the pirates and join forces with the Chinese to help destroy the pirates. As they are being hunted by a crafty enemy, Shek Yeung fears that the enemy might be closer to home. To compound on her worries, Shek Yeung has to navigate motherhood while dealing with a new crisis from every side.
I was super excited to read this book because I thought it was going to be an action packed read. I remember reading about a powerful Chinese female pirate named Zheng Yi Sao. However, I was quickly disappointed because the writing flowed smoothly but it was very clinical and boring. The author mostly spent time talking about politics than spending any time writing and describing the fight scenes. Most of the fight scenes lasted only a few sentences which wasn’t enough to immerse the reader in the high octane pirating lifestyle. I feel like the book is more of an artistic portrayal of the life and struggles of Shek Yeung.
The book was billed as a “fantasy” and “historical fantasy” novel but there were barely any fantasy elements in the novel. The book was narrated mostly by Shek Yeung and it had stories of Ma Tsu/Ma Zou, the sea goddess weaved in between the chapters. The Ma Tsu stories were interesting and had similar themes to issues that Shek Yeung was facing but Ma Tsu never herself made an entrance to the story. I feel that the author including snippets of mythology wasn’t enough to consider this novel a fantasy novel. The story did have one character that could read the fortune of other characters but I still don’t think that there are enough “fantasy” elements.
I did enjoy seeing Shek Yeung’s evolution from a sea loving wild child to being trapped on a flower ship to a pirate wife and then finally a fearless leader. It was interesting reading about some of her inner turmoil and her reasoning behind her decisions. If you like historical fantasy novels that are more about politics, then you might enjoy this book.
