Tuesday, April 4, 2023

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Wicked Bargain by Gabe Cole Novoa

 


The Wicked Bargain is a YA Historical Fantasy novel by author Gabe Cole Novoa, a Latinx transmasc author who had previously written a trilogy under a pen name "Ava Jae". I'd never heard of him or this novel, until my favorite reviewer - Alex Brown from Tor.com, Locus and their own blog - put in an absolute glowing review of this book. The novel takes place around 1820 in the Caribbean, as countries in Latin American began to assert their indepedence from Spanish rule via violent revolution and Latin non-white pirates sailed around and seized Spanish vessels - pirates generally ignored and forgotten in White western stories in favor of White Western pirates. And so Novoa tells a story of fictional pirates, featuring a transmasc non-binary teen named Mar as they deal with not just the historical background, but their own dangerous magical powers, as well as Demons (Demonios) and Devils (Diablos) who have their own sinister agendas.

It's a queer young adult fantasy tale that works really really well and is absolutely deserving of acclaim. The Wicked Bargain doesn't do anything super unique in its tale - the ideas of a teen dealing with dangerous uncontrollable magic inside them, with a possible romance with a boy they're forced to be around that's inconvenient in its timing, and dealing with both historical oppressors and/or deals with the devil are all ideas that I've seen (and many readers will have seen) before. However, the Wicked Bargain combines all of these ideas and executes them beautifully, and puts them all into a story featuring characters from backgrounds that are often ignored in these tales - queer and trans characters, characters who are Latinx and non-White, and who are from backgrounds forced to deal with colonial imperial oppressors...in this case the people of 1800s Latin America. Its characters are really well done, its themes are excellent, and its just a really well told story, which makes it extremely easy to recommend to readers looking for YA and even just general good historical fantasy and adventure fiction.


---------------------------------------------Plot Summary------------------------------------------
Mar is the child of el Embrujado, a Caribbean pirates, whose success keeping his ship alive while plundering the Spanish and giving/selling their cargoes to the colonized and rising up people of the Caribbean has made him a legend. But secretly, Mar is more than that - their skin is covered with marks that show that they are gifted with magia (magic) - power over fire and ice that they can't control. It's a power that only those on the ship know about, for when Mar revealed it in public once, they were accused of being a demon and lost both their mother...and their control, causing their powers to erupt and cause tremendous damage. And Mar's powers are not the only part of Mar that they feel uncomfortable about - there's also their body, which they keep bound so they can still pose as a boy as they want, so they can be treated as the son of their father and not anything else. Yet despite having to reign in both their power and their body tightly, Mar's life isn't so bad as they turn 16, even as their ship deals with a pretty bad storm.

But what Mar doesn't realize is that the story their Papá has told them whole life - that he sold his soul to el Diablo (the Devil) for sixteen years of prosperity and the continuation of his legacy (his child's life) - is true. Now those 16 years are up and el Diablo has come to obtain his due, taking their Papá's soul....and sinking the ship and its crew for good measure.

And yet, Mar somehow survives the sinking...and Mar finds themself rescued by one of their Papá's rivals, Captain Vega of the La Ana. It's a ship and crew that begrudgingly Mar comes to like...even Vega's son Bas who makes them a cabin boy in return for saving them from the sea. But Mar can't relax on this new ship, for who knows how they will react if they discover the truth of Mar's tattoos and their Magia. And then there's the Demonio (Demon) haunting Mar, and trying to tempt Mar into doing something that Mar knows can't be for their own benefit, despite the promised possibility of saving their Papá's soul. Yet when the crew of La Ana winds up being chased by the full force of the Spanish, Mar will find themselves unable to keep their power still hidden and will have to make a choice as to how to act to save not just themselves, but those they care about.....
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The Wicked Bargain, like I said above the jump, deals with a lot of pretty common tropes. You have a young teen with magic they can't control, that they fear begin accused of witchcraft for possessing and being attacked or feared; you have a teen on a pirate ship who becomes the one needed to save the rest of the crew from unjust authorities (and the pirates are noble); you have a YA romance between the teen protagonist and one of the pirates, you have deals with the devil and demons offering more deals at inopportune times, etc. But what makes this a truly special book - and it is one - is how it weaves all these things together with both historical oppression - the struggle of the peoples of the Caribbean with the oppressive Spanish overseers - and Mar's own inner oppression of who they are - both as a queer nonbinary trans person (although this is a world in which queer relationships are quite common and unremarked upon on pirate ships) and as a person with magic that makes them feared and marks them as different.

This works really well due to the plotting and prose as well as Mar's own character being a tremendous hero who it's incredibly easy to relate to.  Mar's struggles are both mundane and magical and Novoa makes all of these struggles feel real and easy to understand and feel empathy for.  On a mundane note, Mar is uncomfortable with their body, kind of ashamed of the binding they use to bind their chest (and wish they could magically flatten their chest so they wouldn't need it) even if they never face any queerphobia in this setting - there are several M-M relationships on the pirate ships, which Novoa notes in an author's note was undoubtedly a real thing, and Mar's potential love interest is a boy who has no issues with them being another boy or show any issue if they turn out to be trans - but even then they feel uncomfortable because its their body that's the problem, not necessarily others' prejudices.  Mar also naturally struggles with the loss of their father and his crew, which was their family, and having to adapt to being the cabin boy of their papá's rivals is naturally stinging and difficult.  And then there's their magical struggles (which are analogous to their mundane ones), having to deal with a powerful magia that could get them killed if exposed...and could get others killed if they lose control, making them feel its more a curse than a blessing.  To say nothing of the el Diablo tempting them with their papá's soul and the stupid attractive demonio - whose body shapechanges between genders every time they appear, to Mar's envy - who keeps begging Mar to listen to their offer of a deal....

Novoa weaves all this together with a historical background that is rich and undertold in American literature, a time when Caribbean peoples were rising up against the Spanish, who still wanted to hold onto their colonies with an iron fist.  This history helps ground this plot in a fresh new way, and Novoa's plotting is excellent as the plot features Mar's story and character development until they are a happier and stronger person, one who is comfortable with who they are and proudly is willing to wield their own identity in front of others, others who they know will only love them for it.  Novoa also includes an author's note at the end that explains the historical background and how they weaved together parts of real life history without covering up the bad parts therein - for example, Novoa notes that many pirates carried slaves they took from Spanish ships and Novoa's fictional pirates don't do that....but acknowledge in-world that others do, making it clear to the audience that many if not most historical Caribbean pirates may not be people to idolize.  It's a really smart and deftly done move that uses history to educate and center an excellent relevant story, without making heroes those who were anything but.  

In short, an excellent young adult novel, one I highly recommend.  


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