'Max and the Spice Thieves': Pirates, Spices and Evil Djinn

Many thanks to NetGalley, Crumblebee Books and the author for the digital advanced reader’s copy of Max and the Spice Thieves in exchange for my honest review.

Title: Max and the Spice Thieves
Author: John Peragine
Publisher: Crumblebee Books
Pub. date: 20 April 2021
Series: Secrets of the Twilight Djinn #1
Pages: 274
Source: NetGalley
Genres: middle-grade, action & adventure, fantasy

When his mother goes missing, Max Daybreaker’s world is turned upside down. Luckily, a crew of Spice Pirates, led by the mysterious Captain Cinn, help Max on his dangerous mission across the three seas.
Along the way, an unlikely alliance aids in his search—a teenage warrior queen, a three-eyed seer, and an assassin spy.
Their journey takes them through treacherous lands while facing shapeshifting bears, an ancient witch, harpies, and the nightmarish Djinn, who will stop at nothing to enslave the world.
With every new challenge, Max unlocks the secrets of his unsettling past. Powers awaken within, forcing him to question everything he knows.
Is Max who he thinks he is? Only time and destiny will tell…

What really drew me in was Max and the Spice Thieves‘s cover! It implies adventure, pirates and quite a lot of fun. Enough to tempt a Pirates of the Caribbean fan to pick it up! Anyway, who doesn’t wanna read a middle-grade pirate story?

Max and the Spice Thieves follows Max Daybreaker starting with the morning his mom pulls him out of bed to embark on an adventure and promptly disappears. This catapults Max into a whirlwind of an adventure that takes him from pirate ships to illustrious palaces to a witch temple and an icy snow bear enclave. The story is very family-centered with Max overcoming all odds to find his mom and his missing-in-action dad before the evil Djinn get their claws in him first.

Max Daybreaker is a twelve-year-old boy who gets thrust into a mysterious quest to find his parents in the first chapter itself. He’s brave, loving, and an absolutely adorable main character whose struggles and passion really endears to the reader.

For a middle-grade novel, Max exhibits a lot of growth throughout the book, which is not surprising given his passion and drive to save his family. He makes friends with a myriad different characters, which really speaks to his people skills. I was charmed by how he made friends with not just pirates, but thieves, princes, and snow bears as well!

There’s really no indication of diverse characters even though most of the worldbuilding has a South Asian-Middle Eastern influence from the Djinn to the food and the clothes.

My favourite relationships in the book were those between Max and Captain Cinn – a mysterious pirate captain determined to help Max – and between Max and his parents. They were such wholesome and loving relationships that really made the story richer.

The biggest negative about this book was the romance! Max meets two different teenage girls who quickly get enamored by him, but is this really necessary??? I’m always very particular about romance in a middle-grade book and this felt forced and completely unnecessary! Instead, I would have loved to see Max have some wholesome female friends who inspire and push him, and vice versa.

I really liked the story in Max and the Spice Thieves because it really delivered on the adventure and friendship tropes it promised! It felt like a MG-rated Pirates of the Caribbean movie in writing, so I was very impressed and absolutely invested in the story.

One aspect I was happy about was that most of the book was the conflict stage of the story with Max overcoming countless odds to figure out his parents’ whereabouts, and the build-up to the climax was well-done. However, the resolution towards the end was very quick and left me reeling a bit with all the revelations that popped up. Personally, I would have preferred maybe one more chapter before the ending to slow down the pace.

Max and the Spice Thieves was set in a fictional world that spanned over a Middle Eastern influenced city, an Amazonian jungle and an icy tundra. I really liked the world-building because it was unique, fun, and focussed a lot on imagery to give the reader a vibrant experience. Reading about the bustle of the hot marketplace was just as exciting as trekking through a jungle filled with poisonous snakes to a witch’s temple.

The incorporation of spices into the world-building was brilliant! Spices are a controlled commodity in Max’s world, reserved for the rich and the royal. Characters like Captain Cinn are Spice Pirates who fight against the corrupted Spice Guild’s rule to distribute spices to the poor and needy. The food imagery in this story was excellently done ranging from the smells to the tastes of the various spices. This had me craving for some good Indian or Middle Eastern food every time Cinn cooked!

The past played a huge role in Max’s own quest. It was fun learning about what Max himself had read and what they found out along the way. The author really put in a lot of thought into the war with the Djinn and the everything to do with the Sultan. It was very satisfying to see all the odds and ends tie together by the end of the story!

The biggest theme in this story was centered around family, both by blood and found families. Max is intensely dedicated to keep his friends and family safe from the dangers that befall him along the way. As someone very family-centered, I felt that this theme gave the otherwise fun pirate adventure story a lot more depth and substance.

Another big theme was corrupted governments. Along with the author’s clever world-building, he introduced a lot of corruption. There is the corrupted Spice Guild and characters like Cinn fighting to give their most important commodity, spices, to the people who really need them. Even the Djinn are big bad guys who are operating out of fear to destroy what and who can kill them, giving no regard to the innocents they hurt along the way.

Max and the Spice Thieves is a fun whirlwind of an adventure with clever worldbuilding and great characters. However, the rushed ending put me off, as did romance that felt forced and totally unnecessary. I would still recommend this to anyone who is a fan of daredevil adventure and vibrant, diverse world-building!

Note: I used The Quiet Pond’s 63 Prompts to Help You Write That Book Review to help me make this a more detailed and organised book review. Make sure you check them out!