The Seafire trilogy (Razorbill, 2018-21). Covers by Billelis and Cliff Nielsen

You know the rule about trilogies at Black Gate. Every time one wraps up, we bake a cake. Stormbreak, the third novel in Natalie C. Parker’s Seafire series, arrives early next month from Razorbill, and the interns are already warming up the oven.

What’s Seafire all about? Pirates!! Girl pirates of the far future, actually, which is intensely cool. My favorite notice comes from Feliza Casano over at Tor.com, who enthusiastically reviewed the first volume:

Caledonia Styx’s ship, the Mors Navis, is one of the only ships that still sails free from the rule of bloodthirsty warlord Aric Athair and his army of Bullets, who brutalize the coastal settlements… it was a Bullet boy claiming to seek a place on the Mors Navis who talked Caledonia into revealing the Mors Navis’s location, resulting in the death of every person in the crew save Caledonia and her best friend, Pisces, who were ashore on a supply run.

Four years later, Caledonia and Pisces have rebuilt the Mors Navis and recruited a new crew entirely made up of women and girls who have lost their own families and homes to Athair’s raids. The women of the Mors Navis are determined to chip away at Athair’s empire, even if that means taking his navy down ship by ship. But when Pisces brings aboard a runaway Bullet who says he wants to defect, the secret Caledonia’s been keeping for four years threatens to come to light…

Seafire seems to be set in a distant future of our own universe. The ships in Seafire run on solar sails and other advanced technology, and obtaining the right parts to fix the Mors Navis is one of the quests the crew takes on… A tale of adventure, loss, and a sisterhood that overcomes adversity, Seafire is a fresh and fast-paced story that leads readers racing through the pages and leaves them aching for more.

Here’s the complete publishing deets.

Seafire (374 pages, $18.99 hardcover/$10.99 paper & digital, August 28, 2018) — cover by Billelis
Steel Tide (432 pages, $18.99 hardcover/$11.99 paper/$10.99 digital, September 17, 2019) — cover by Cliff Nielsen
Stormbreak (432 pages, $18.99 hardcover/$10.99 digital, February 9, 2021)

See all our coverage of the best new fantasy series here.