By Justin Somper

Overview: This was a fun, entertaining read! You might enjoy it if you like adventures on the high seas and pirates and such. I would recommend this to people grades six and up. The content level is kind of medium, but the reading level is a little bit lower.

What’s it about? When Connor and Grace’s father dies, they have no idea where to go. Their father left them with nothing, and their only options are the orphanage or a stuffy banker’s home. Instead, they steal back their family’s small yacht and sail off… right into a storm. When the storm finally drifts away, Connor finds himself on a pirate ship, learning to become one himself, and Grace discovers the Vampirates ship, in an entirely different situation.

My thoughts: The writing was okay, and the idea was creative and original, with three-dimensional characters and descriptive settings. However, the only action scene is over quickly and nothing really important happens because of it, and at the end where you think there might be *POSSIBLE SPOILER ALERT AHEAD, TURN BACK NOW* a big fight scene between the Vampirates and the regular pirates, everything is just peaceful and nothing really happens. And I haven’t even talked about the second book! *OKAY SPOILER IS OVER. YOU MAY RETURN TO YOUR REGULAR PROGRAMMING.*

Overall I think the story was an okay series, but I felt like it just wasn’t good enough to be one of my favorites. It’s definitely exciting, however! The book is also supposed to be set in the year 2050 or so, but everything feels too old-timey in most of the book. They never really mention any modern cities or electronics, but at some points they talk about high school and stuff, making it seem more modern…? It’s really hard to tell what time this is all happening in.