Book Review: SHIP OF SPELLS Is An Enchanting High Seas Adventure

Ship of Spells
Written by H. Leighton Dickson
Published by Red Tower Press
November 4, 2025
Hardcover, 512 pgs.

Most of the time, when I discuss a gender-swapped Horatio Hornblower, I’m usually talking about David Weber’s Honor Harrington. Hornblower was very much the model for that series of books tracing Harrington’s career as an officer in the Royal Manticoran Navy, and I recommend those books anytime I get an opportunity.

This time, however, I’m turning my focus onto another Honor: Ensign Bluemage Honor Renn, late of the good ship Dawn Watch. The only survivor of the attack, Honor is rescued by the mysterious privateer ship Touchstone, where she’s pressed into service as a blue-level magic user until such time as they can dump her ashore. And she’s not sure what to think about her misfortune — or is it?

Touchstone is the legendary “Ship of Spells” that everyone hears about but never sees, mainly because of the cloaking spells active while in port. She’s got a history, and her crew is as rag-tag as they come, complete with a centaur, dwarves, and other magical creatures who aren’t quite human — er, homani, as they’re known on this planet. This is Pirates of the Caribbean by way of Narnia, if you will. The captain and his crew have been charged with patrolling the waters in an effort to curtail the war efforts of the Rhi’Ahr, dark elven-like people who live in the southern hemisphere and sneak through to the northern waters through cracks in the Dreadwall, a massive wall of water conjured up at the equator to divide the factions and prevent all-out war.

Honor finds herself facing circumstances that challenge her beliefs as she discovers that her magic powers have been augmented by a natural affinity to absorb and control the magic in the environment around her. This puts her in contact with the Touchstone, and it allows her to help the crew find the hidden island where once lived the source of all magic. This the captain can use to close all of the breaches in the Dreadwall for good.

Throughout the book, Honor is faced with moments where she has to decide if she’s going to engage in potentially emotional investment, or if she’s taking the easy way out and run. Told from her perspective in first person narration, you get a solid sense of her turmoil. Especially when she realizes what type of crew is on the Touchstone, most notably the captain, she then faces the question of whether or not to abandon her duties and loyalty as a member of the Navy and become another magic-using member of this motley crew. Usually these moments are in the midst of crisis where she also has to decide a best course of action to save herself or the crew of the ship that rescued her, which only adds to her confusion about where her loyalties should lie.

My comparison to Horatio Hornblower isn’t chosen at random. Honor is a Navy ensign here, assigned to a Navy ship early because she’s demonstrated an aptitude for using magic and because she proved to be a pain in the neck at the academy. Maybe that’s because of her upbringing? Could that factor into this story somewhere later in the book?

Maayyybe.

I like that Dickson has taken the familiar high seas adventure — with similarities to Pirates, Master and Commander, etc — and given the more prominent typical elements and given them a bit of a twist. The captain is not what Honor expects. Her loyalty is not immediately given to this crew. The motivations for everyone are in question more often than not. And the captain’s ultimate mission is murky at the best of times. It’s a well-told tale that opens up a new world to explore in future books.

One quibble: the descriptions of the Dreadwall, Silence, and the Sheets. While I was reading the book, I got a pretty good sense of these, but I had to read the terms in the glossary to get them clear in my head what each one is and how they relate to each other. Given that this is a fantasy novel, it might have needed a map. Because every fantasy adventure has a map, does it not? Perhaps for future editions...

UPDATE: Ms Dickson informed me that the copy I was reading didn’t have the map because it’s an Advance Reader Copy. The published hardcover edition does include this map inside the cover:

Future editions should also dispense with the trigger warning at the beginning of the book. It wasn’t quite enough for me to set the book aside, but it’s an immediate red flag for a lot of readers these days. Let me assure you, the trigger warning can be read in a way that says “If you’re into high-energy sexy adventure on the high seas with bloody battles, explosions, a weaponized magic, then this book is for you.”

[Seriously, Red Tower Books, lose the trigger warnings. It’s not 2021 anymore, and that virtue signal has lost its appeal.]

Coming on the heels of data from the UK that “romantasy” is a hot selling sub-genre, and having no real interest in bodice-ripping beauty-and-the-beast types of stories that pass for fantasy these days, I was prepared to endure this book. But I found that I enjoyed it more than I expected. The romance is organic and unforced, set aside when it needs to be set aside in favor of higher story priorities. And there’s a natural progression that swerves away from the “enemies to lovers” trope. Indeed, all of the relationships that Honor forms with the crewmen are handled with a deft hand, especially those with the first officer, quartermaster, and ship’s surgeon.

I also like the fact that the magical creatures aren’t given any more attention than anyone else. They exist and they’re part of the story. Nowhere did I feel like I was being given any kind of allegorical “they’re different so they’re better” lecture on representation. Because there are a couple of places where that could easily have been inserted but wasn’t.

Lots to like in this story, and it has a satisfying ending that sets up the next book quite nicely, I think. Plenty of action for the male readers, and I think — not being a woman — there’s enough fluttering of bosom for the women to enjoy as well. Perhaps I’ll give this one to the Mrs to get her opinion. She’ll likely tell me I’m right.