An intrigue and exciting tale of love and piracy. An unusual topic for a sapphic book and well done.

Catalina de Valasco, daughter of a powerful Spanish Count, is on her way to the America’s to marry a man she has never met; just part of the life of a seventeenth century noblewoman. Life changes dramatically when the ship she is on gets taken by pirates, and she is suddenly at the mercy of a bunch of cutthroat men who haven’t seen a woman in months.

In an effort to protect her the Captain puts her ashore with the cabin boy and a couple of sailors more interested in each other than her, while they wait for the ransom to be paid by her husband to be. Unfortunately for the Captain and his crew the island they found was in what we now call the Bermuda Triangle and here the real adventure begins.

This is an unusual story which definitely falls into 2 sections, the adventure at sea and the mystery on the island. The first is a more typical build up and sets the scene for both the role and actions of several characters in the later part of the story. The island takes us to a setting that is sci-fi/fantasy in nature but feels almost paranormal with the ongoing influence of the ancients shaping the lives of the islanders. Add in ongoing action adventure, murder mystery and romance and you begin to see why it’s hard to describe.

The group trapped on the island form an interesting mix, and their backgrounds and personalities form the core of a well-drawn ensemble piece. Each takes a role and plays a part, from stoic hero to warrior philosopher, lover to murderer. The characters are lightly drawn but stay in the mind as we root for them to succeed in their quest. The romance is definitely a secondary plotline, it adds an empathy to the main character but takes a back seat to Catalina’s ‘coming out’ as a scholar and adventurer. Her journey from reserved, stuck-up and self-important Condesa to Greek translating computer expert is well done.

An interesting story that I thoroughly enjoyed. Curious mix, intriguing concept, it captured my interest and kept me hooked. The descriptions are vivid and the island literally came to life in the in the imagination. Love it or hate it you can’t help but want to know what happens next.

What a freaking wild idea. Isle of Broken Years is a fantastical tale involving pirates, time travel, the Bermuda Triangle and aliens. And it works! Just suspend your disbelief and prepare to be delighted as the book weaves its way through historical fiction, spec fic, science fiction and beyond. Fletcher has created a completely unpredictable story line that will drag you into it and keep you guessing what's going to happen next. Add to that some great action and suspense and you've got me hooked.

I've always been a big fan of Jane Fletcher's books - she is excellent with imaginative world building and characters and I wish she'd publish more books, especially if they are as intriguing and entertaining as Isle of Broken Years. I'm giving this a big two thumbs up for keeping me guessing and managing to throw all the different genres and plot lines together into a really fun and cohesive story.

DNF @ 14%

I don't want to spend too many words on this. I didn't have a problem with the story so far, it was okay and I wouldn't have minded seeing where it was going.

My problem and the reason I decided to DNF this for my own well-being is the fact that this book, at least what little I read of it, is the constant threat of rape that women face on every page. Is that realistic? Hell yes. Is that completely overused for the sole purpose of earning sympathy for one of the MCs who is under this constant threat? Also yes. Am I tired of being reminded even in fiction that as a (queer) woman I am never safe from men? Fucking. Yes.

Starting with this book, I will now be DNF'ing any book in which I think that violence against women is used purely as a plot device, I don't care about claims of historical accuracy or whatever fuck else. If you write a book and market it towards queer women because of the sapphic relationship in it, you should think to yourself why you feel the need to perpetuate the same harmful shit that we read in cis old white men's fiction.

Just to be on the safe side I am marking this entire review as having spoilers (because just the wrong word will give away some surprise…so just jump down to the bottom of the page to see what how I rated the story).

I had a very hard time writing up this review. Not because I did not like the book, on the contrary, I really liked it.

One last warning. Spoilers ahead.

<spoiler>

So you’re asking why spoilers. Because time travel. Which is also why it is here on this site. Because sci-fi.

The publishers do not have this listed under their speculative fiction section and that might be to keep the surprise. But it should be there.

At first the book seems to be just your average pirate fantasy book. Until the ship wrecks on a island. An island they cannot escape from. An island that travels in time.

Yeah, there is a romance in there too, but the story itself is more about the people on the island and how are they try to get off said island.

It is reminiscent of Lost, but without the stupid ending.

</spoiler>

I was given a copy of this book by Netgalley in return for an honest review.

I thought I was in for a standard pirate romance book, but oh no! I was so pleasantly surprised! Thanks for a very entertaining story, hope there will be more by the author!

This was a bit of a let down for me. The beginning started off really strong and i thought it would be a pirate lesbian adventure but it ended taking a turn and getting slow as heck! I loved Sam and Catalina and wished it was more romance heavy than Sci-Fi. Ultimatley, I went into this thinking it would be a romance and that never really materialised. The cast of characters that were introduced when she got to the island where interesting and a couple stood out but most were just meh. I really wanted more than lingering glances and confused feelings and my much loved trope of hot, passionate kissing between kick ass women.

Interesting blending of fantasy and historical romance. Parts of it dragged for me but ultimately it was a great book

This book would be great for other readers, but it just had too many elements I didn't care about. Loved the sapphic characters, but sci fi is my least fav and this was so plot focused and the romance really got buried beneath everything unfolding.

While on a ship headed for the Americas and to her promised husband, Catalina de Valasco gets kidnapped by pirates, well privateers. She thought her biggest worry is fending off would-be rapists, but when she and "cabin boy" Sam end up shipwrecked on a mysterious island, they'll have to join forces with castaways from many centuries to solve the mystery of the island and escape. They might even fall in love along the way.

This book was not at all what I expected. I thought it would be heavy on romantic tension with a little plot thrown in as backstory. Nope. No at all, more like heavy plot with a dash of romance. There are so many rich characters, and more history and lore than you can almost wrap your head around.

I love lore. I love fantasy. I love reworking old tales and lore with new theories and characters. I really appreciated what this book was trying to do, and I think, for the most part, it really got there. I got bogged down in details occasionally, but that comes with the territory of world-building, and I was on the edge of my seat wondering what new discoveries would come along. It's imaginative, and though I was a tad disappointed that the romance took such a back seat, it was still well-done. Pair this reading with a spooky music playlist, and you're in for an adventure.

This is a very good fantasy! I have read all the books in Ms. Fletcher’s Celaeno Series and Lyremouth Chronicles Series. She has a wonderful imagination. I was not disappointed with this book.

The setting of the story revolves around the world of piracy and the Bermuda Triangle. After reading the abstract for this book, I was hooked. Catalina de Valasco is a 17th century Spanish noblewoman who is promised in marriage to a wealthy man who lives in America. She is bound for America when her boat is attacked and captured by pirates. The pirates decide to contact Catalina’s husband to be and ask for a ransom.

The cabin boy (oops … cabin girl) on the pirate ship is Sam. For the last few years, Sam has been pretending to be a boy. Originally, she was doing this for her own safety, but now finds it more comfortable to play the role of a boy.
The captain decides to put Catalina and Sam (along with a few men who are not interested in women) on an island while he waits for the ransom response from the future husband. It is at this point that the Bermuda Triangle comes in to play and the adventure and excitement starts.

Ms. Fletcher is an excellent storyteller. She thoroughly develops her characters. Readers will immediately want to cheer on their favorite individuals. It was hard to put down the book because I wanted to know the next calamity to befall our castaways.

I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys fantasy and adventure. I rate this book 5 out of 5 stars.

I was given this ARC in return for a fair and honest review.

I loved this. It's got danger and humor and bitterness and sweetness and one surprise after another. Let me say, the blurb for this book does not prepare you. And for that reason, I don't want to tell you what makes this book so good, because having no clue what was coming is what knocked me off my feet.

What I will say is this: it's 20% historical fiction, 80% scifi, and 100% nothing I expected (also, it's gay). If you just want 100% romance, this isn't that. But if you want your romance mixed in with a sometimes weird, sometimes heartbreaking adventure, I cannot recommend this enough.

Look, this book is a wild ride, but it's so much fun.

When I decided to read 'Isle of Broken Years' by Jane Fletcher, I thought I was choosing a historical fiction tale to read, and the book does start out that way. However, the story did not stay that way. Boy did it ever change! The story goes from a tale about a Spanish noblewoman sailing to the Americas in the fifteenth century to get married who gets captured and held for ransom by pirates, to this whole other fantasy/sci fi/spec fic/romance story that is just freaking wild. I mean this in a good way.

I'm not going to go into any more detail about the story itself. I will say that Jane Fletcher did an amazing job with an intricate and complicated plot, and made even the most fantastical elements seem like they could be real. The flow of the story was great and the characters were well done and believable.

The only criticism I really have is the romance was a really slow burn, though I can sort of understand that considering who the two characters were. I just wanted to see them get together sooner.

I can recommend this story to anyone who likes any of the genres mentioned above. It is a wild and exciting read and well worth choosing this book.

I received this book as an ARC by Net Galley and Bold Strokes Books for an honest review.

Well gosh! This book is like one of those old sci fi B movies, where every impossible plot and outlandish connection is made. So far fetched that the bad becomes good. Aliens, ancient myths, pirates - this story has them them all! Well written with an amazing imagination, I have to give five stars for the sheer audacity of being able to pull the plot off, also the line “Dude, I was born in Texas”. Read this and marvel.

I think I entered a lesbian Twilight Zone in this book. Historical fiction, science fiction, and romance all in one book. This book will take you on a strange adventure like no other has ever done before. This book is well written and the characters are good. I hope to read another book from this author.

‘ Isle of Broken Years’ is an amazingly inventive story that started off being the tale of a noblewoman being captured by pirates and veered off into something way more interesting and fantastic. Catalina is expecting to meet the man her parents have decided she is to marry and live out her life in the New World. When she is kidnapped by pirates hoping to make some money from her capture her life takes a turn for the worse. When they pass near the ’Bermuda Triangle’ things go off in a whole new direction. I absolutely loved the premise of this novel. It was not at all what I expected - it was so much better. It is difficult to say too much about the rest of the story as I don’t want to give anything away. Suffice to say there is mystery and life is fraught with danger. An unexpected attraction adds some romance to the story - and this was handled really well. As Jane Fletcher writes lesbian fiction you can probably guess where this goes. The characters are well written and develop over the course of the book. I will also just say that the epilogue is wonderful. I’ve never seen one done quite this way before, but it really works. An excellent story.

I was given this ARC by Netgalley and Bold Strokes for review.

When Sarah’s mom died, her father cut her hair, put her in boy’s clothes and took her with him to sea. 8-year-old Sarah became Sam and lived a sailor’s life ever since. Taken by a Dutch privateer 8 months before, cabin boy Sam (still successfully passing as a teenage boy) tries to keep her head down amongst the rowdy pirates.

Catalina de Valasco, daughter of a Spanish nobleman, is on route to New Spain to meet her husband-to-be when the pirates take her and her companions hostage for ransom. To keep their precious ‘cargo’ safe from raping seamen, Sam and a few others (who can keep it in their pants) accompany doña Catalina as they get dropped onto this mysterious island that just popped up.

Sam’s got a bad feeling about the place and she’s right. No sooner do they step on land or the island jumps (through time but they don’t know that yet), destroying the ships and most of the crew and leaving Sam and company stranded in this most inhospitable place. And it seems they are not alone.

So far it was all historical, but once on the island the sci-fi part of the story kicks in.

All the time traveling is done by the island itself so the reader (and the characters) don’t see any changes apart from some shifting from night to day. It’s the stranded peeps themselves that are from various times. That makes for some comical cultural differences. I think Catalina sounded a bit too modern at times.

All the alien tech on the island felt a tad too convenient at times. If you need a gadget you can find it in the barn, they have caretaking robot spiders that do the cleaning up, there are hot water showers and your clothes are auto-cleaned, they have light and airco, there is gas to power the vehicles, they have weapons and ammo. The only snag is that for food they need to go to the dangerous part of the island where they are hunted by killer robot beasties. Apart for the food situation I wouldn’t find it such an evil place to be to be honest and it took away from the feeling they were ‘surviving’ on that tropical island.

Don’t expect a sweeping romance arc. Catalina basically hates Sam through the whole book because she is a filthy pirate and of what Lorenzo whispered in her ear. When he kicks the bucket she thinks Sam pushed him towards his death and hates her even more. When that is disproven she still don’t trust her and they avoid each other as much as they can.

When they finally do come together (20 pages before the end) it was extremely underwhelming. The love scene is 2 paragraphs and for both girls it’s their first time (ever) and where do they do it? … in the shower, standing up. As first times go and the amount of clueless these two are, I just don’t find that very plausible, sorry.

f/f

Themes: Atlantis, aliens and the ancient Greeks, talk about a hostile environment (!), the language nerd ultimately saves the day, one very short and clumsily written love scene, OMG that Lorenzo guy was such a self-hating gay homophobe throughout the story I would have gladly dropkicked him in that jungle of death myself.

3.8 stars

* A free copy was provided by Netgalley and Bold Strokes Books Inc. for an honest review.

So... this one had me wondering what I should do with it, because there were some parts I really loved, but then others that I wish were tweaked a little bit more. It started off as a historical fiction, then took a left turn into sci-fi/ speculative fiction. I liked that Fletcher played around with the concept of time travel other than the typical tropes that go a long with that premise. Having a <i>place</i> jump times is really interesting to me. However, the pacing was really slow for me. I thought the characters having to research their way out was nice, however Fletcher struggled to keep the plot from dragging.

Catalina De Valasco is a noblewoman on her way to be married off to a powerful man in Spain. The ship she is traveling on is attacked by privateers lead by a savvy pirate who wants to ransom her off. While prisoner on board the vessel, she meets Sam, a shy deckhand and sparks fly. Due to tensions on the ship, most of the crew end up on what seems like a deserted island. They soon realize that is not the case, and Sam and Catalina must use their wits to survive.

The romance between Catalina and Sam is nice, but like other reviewers noted, they have a lot of issues to work through. Catalina was really great, even as she started to realize that she was attracted to Sam and all of the implications of being attracted to a woman. She was also a bit stuck up, but I attribute that more to her being a noblewoman from a ridiculously powerful family. Sam, on the other hand, was just a little too easy going. She handled the situation better than even the other characters did in the island. That was more like the plot needed her not to freak out more often. She does make up for it a little by being really astute and adaptable, so it's not terrible.

Overall, there is a lot of really, really good stuff here. I almost wish that it could have been stretched into a second book, so that we could get a little more about what was happening and more time with Catalina and Sam together because their chemistry was fantastic. This is a solid read for the most part, and with the lack of quality lesfic sci-fi and fantasy. I'm glad its here.

The Isle of Broken Years is a very good book. Mysterious circumstances, historical conundrums, unknown technology, strange creatures, and a small but diverse array of characters all come together to make a great read that has elements of historical fiction, science-fiction, and adventure – plus a slow-burn romance between two women of very different backgrounds.
I started to read assuming this was a pirate story, and it starts just like that. The plot takes what I thought was a big twist and I really didn’t expect it. But it’s all in the title and it’s good twist, and a unique one!
I really enjoyed reading this book, and I thought the epilogue worked well. Perfect for this book. I loved this one, and it gets five stars.

This is a first read for me for this author so was excited to get a copy of this book. I wasn't to sure what I was in for, but I can say the ride was well worth it. I am not much of a syfi/fantasy genre reader, and I'll be honest i didn't even know that was what this book was about, but I enjoyed it. This author does a wonderful job of really pulling you into to the story with great descriptions of the landscape and characters. The book is more 80% adventure (getting sucked into the Bermuda Triangle and trying to escape) and 20% lesbian love story.

It kept me turning the pages for 2 days, my only let down was the epilogue-of all my years of reading, I never had an epilogue presented in quite that way (I don't mention how due to spoiler)-I would have preferred a bit more detail wrap up, but to each her own.

Over all a good read if you are into syfi/fantasy and a well written story with good characters.

I received an ARC through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review, but would have written the same opinion if I had come across this author on my own.

To see my Amazon review, it is under CC-September 4-Nice read