Adrian looks, sounds, feels finely written and crafted, like Dickinson or Angelou or even Sappho - crisp and clear and full of intent - and Josephine, Jo is like the writing that a child hammers out on their first attempt at a haiku or, worse, a sonnet. Jo is buggy and grimy, half-baked and yet as poignant as the greats. Adrian Bruce will go down in history as a woman who impacted the world, who saved civilization with only a small crowd of supporters at her back. Josephine Pontifier will not grace the pages of a history book for the events that she tails Adrian through, no, but for the bloody history that she drove forward before Adrian became the sheath to her sword. That is how any good story goes, after all: a hero, here Adrian, falls in love with a villain, here Jo. There are pirates and princesses, love, lust, and war - and in the end, the hero falls victim to their own hand, to the love they have so carefully crafted and to the villain whose edges they have unceremoniously blunted.