Seafire

Caledonia Styx captains an all-girl crew aboard the Mors Navis in a post-apocalyptic world that uses the advanced technologies of the past to power a world of violence and piracy.  Aric Athair rules the seas with his powerful navy manned by young men who are stolen from their families and drugged into loyalty.

Cal wants nothing more than to destroy Aric and all he represents.  Her own family is dead because she let her guard down with one of his men.  Now, she and her crew seek ways to eat away at his empire.  With her best friend, Pisces, and the rest of her young but skilled comrades, she's doing her best.

After a failed attack, Pisces returns to the ship with a boy from Aric's army.  Pisces says he saved her life, that he wants to turn traitor, but all Cal can see is that boy who betrayed her and killed her family long ago.

As a compromise, she keeps him imprisoned rather than killing him, but he swears he has important information.  Caledonia and Pisces' brothers aren't dead.  They were captured and taken into Aric Athair's fleet, and this boy knows how to find them.

Caledonia doesn't know if she can overcome her prejudice to trust this boy or even if she should, but if there is a chance her brother is alive, she has to take it.

Natalie C. Parker's adventurous tale of an all female pirate crew is fantastic read with multicultural characters full of pathos and contradiction.  My only real complaint is the ending.  I hate cliffhangers, and this is a doozy!  Recommended for grades 8 and up for violence, but it's an all-female crew, so the misogyny and threats of sexual violence on women typical in pirate stories are happily absent.