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Historical Femdom MF Romance Review: What the Parrot Saw by Darlene Marshall

Remember back in 2020, when the poster for the movie Cordelia came out and people immediately got the sort of wrong idea it's actually rather easy to get when looking at a picture of a woman pressing a man to a wall and putting her mouth very, very close to his neck while the man in question opens his own mouth in what might a gasp or a moan and closes his eyes, and on closer inspection both of them are clearly wearing modern clothes but at a glance the aesthetic and the whole atmosphere seem to suggest a period drama?

And remember when all the jokes about that situation and all the people being disappointed by the misunderstanding and expressing interest in an actual femdom-themed period drama led me to write down a whole list of Historical Femdom MF Romance (Not Quite) Recs? (Check the intro to the post itself for an explanation of that "not quite.")

Okay, you guys probably only remember the first thing. If even that. But anyway, I finally got around to reading one of the books on the list. And I liked it. I liked it lot, really. And that made me think, "hey, maybe I could write down a little review for this? And then review the other books on the list, too, whenever I read them? Or at least, the ones I like? Just in case people on here are also still interested in this kind of thing."

Jury's still out on whether I'll actually make any other posts like this. Then again, it's not like the list itself isn't unfortunately short...

In the meantime, here's my thoughts on What the Parrot Saw by Darlene Marshall. Pros, cons, my expectations going in and whether they were satisfied, plus an attempt at avoiding too many plot spoilers as much as I can. (This novel is a romance according to the more modern and widespread definition of the genre, which means the two leads will have either a HFN, Happy For Now, or HEA, Happily Ever After, ending together. It's also meant to be easily read as a standalone, even while being part of the High Seas series. I'm not exactly going to stand here and pretend you can't at least guess what happens in the finale just from this info.)

The story is set in 1839 and opens in St. Martin. Captain Matt St. Armand is a notorious pirate (whoops, my bad, an enterprising merchant) with a dark, if somewhat inflated, reputation. She's also Mattie, a dashing biracial crossdresser with skin and eyes light enough to pass as a generically "Mediterranean" white man, her gender and true origins an open secret to her crew as well as a very useful tool to pool the wool over the eyes of the various obstacles she faces during her smuggling operations... which really consist in freeing slaves on an abolitionist society's payroll. Oliver Woodruff is a hapless English gentleman looking for some adventure abroad before coming home to settle down and take over the family business, and as soon as he sets foot on the island, he manages to get into some serious trouble by expressing his ardent anti-slavery feelings to exactly the wrong sort of people, get carried off to and hidden in a brothel on the orders of a concerned relative's friend (and despite his own loud-and-clear indignation), and get forcibly embarked on Captain St. Armand's vessel to be shipped off to Nassau for his own safety. Except, he takes surprisingly well to working on the ship among totally-not-pirates for safe passage, and as she gets to know him, Mattie realizes he might just be the kind of white man she's going to need soon as "protective coloration" in a dangerous expedition to the Florida Territory... if she can train him to be prepared for every eventuality, make him understand the gravity of what he's agreed to, and maybe also enjoy his presence as long and as much as she can while keeping a cool head and avoiding falling for him. To her credit, she succeeds on almost every count. But when things go awry on their mission, she and Oliver both have to face the aftermath of it, and then, finally, their own feelings...

I want to say right away that I know very little about the historical period What the Parrot Saw is set in, and my knowledge of the Atlantic slave trade is similarly simplistic and limited. Also, Obvious Disclaimer that, what with me being white and European, if there was anything wrong or off about the depiction of the characters of color in the book or slavery as a theme that wasn't glaringly wrong or off, I didn't catch it. However, I can at least say that I didn't think there was anything glaringly wrong or off, from my perspective. Being a romance, the book does, ofc, have a heavy focus on the main couple, with everyone else being just a side or minor character, but whenever any of those side/minor characters weren't white, they all seemed like individuals who had their own life and story and struggles going on outside of Oliver and Mattie as much as any of the white ones, no matter the space dedicated to them. Some of them had gone through horrible, scarring things before meeting the main characters, but even while Oliver and Mattie were reacting to their pain and (especially in Oliver's case) developing as characters or showing their true colors in response of it, to me that always felt more like "this is the time and place the story is set in, and it sucks because things like these are happening and some people are making sure they keep happening because they profit from them, and the author isn't going to hide it or mince words" than some voyeuristic "look at Our Heroes and how Merciful and Enlightened they are for caring about these poor, wretched creatures!" gimmick.

The historical backdrop, in general, felt less like just a backdrop to the romance and more like a coherent, if complicated, world that would keep turning regardless of the leads' choices, but that they could nonethless affect in some way with their efforts. The language, too, seemed appropriate and fully part of said world, not shying away from period-typical words and expressions that would be either awkward or unacceptable today, nor relying on the characters' lexicon to define them as people, instead opting to let their thoughts and actions speak for them... even when, faced with a system much bigger than themselves, they had to make the best of the options actually available to them, compromise, and work within their own limits to keep trying to make things better as much as they could, in what I thought was a mostly well-executed balance of idealism and realism, hope and concreteness. The historical references I could spot on my own and the ones I looked up after I finished reading also seemed very punctual, well-thought-out and well-placed, contextualizing the characters and the plot instead of simply being used to show off the author's research. The only two that gave me a kind of "... wait, what?" reaction upon googling them were, in fact, in the author's final notes, and as such did not color my view of the story itself. (One was very harmless, btw, a clear case of "I checked the primary sources on this but not what academians are mostly saying about them nowadays": essentially, an "I read Suetonius for my research on the Roman emperors, but not any modern historians going 'yeah, that probably didn't happen like that' at Suetonius" sort of situation, but it was used as the base for the creation of an entirely fictional character, not to protray a fictionalized version of the real historical figure involved, so. The other was, as I later discovered, an unfortunate case of "real historical phenomenon, WRONG name," as the first result I found searching for the term used by the author was the Wikipedia page for something that was the exact opposite of what she was referencing, and also a bit of a kick in the stomach to read about while still basking in the afterglow of the romantic resolution.)

This novel made me smile, aww, consider literally twirling my hair and kicking my feet at certain points, tear up, laugh out loud and, in at least one occasion, tear up and laugh out loud right after. And then, in another, separate occasion not long after that, laugh out loud and want to facepalm at the same time, which I'm fairly sure was the intended effect. I'd call the pace of the story leisurely, as in not quite slow but relaxed and comfortable for the most part, even with a fair amount of things happening both to and inside the main characters in its 248 pages, and the tone fairly lighthearted despite dealing with some very dark topics. That said, the author knows how to write exciting action, dramatic tension, and heartbreak. There are a few chapters, after the halfway mark of the book, where a series of Bad Things happen to Oliver. One of these things is particularly violent, and for a while, he has to deal with it pretty much all on his own, all while trying to hold on and not to give in to hopelessness in the terrible circumstances he finds himself in at the time. I wouldn't say anything in those chapters was really gruesome or even excessively graphic, but I did find it all chilling and somewhat shocking, in part because I kept thinking "time for a daring last minute rescue, right? ... right? Right?" and waiting with bated breath until it became clear that no, the daring last minute rescue wasn't gonna happen, and that really made me feel for Oliver. The consequences of that specific violent thing were felt, too, and while they weren't as dire and extreme as they could have been, they weren't ignored or dealt with in just a couple of lines before being dismissed entirely and never brought up again, either, and they very much had their own weight. Having said that, some of my favorite things about What the Parrot Saw were definitely the (sometimes unabashedly silly) humor, the slice-of-life bits both aboard the ship and on land, and the tender, passionate sex scenes, which tbh were a little less kinky and occasionally a little closer to each other than I would have expected or liked but were never boring to read or unenjoyable, in part because they felt sort of self-indulgent in a very positive sense, and in part because the chemistry, both sexual and romantic, between the main characters just worked for me.

Mattie is a delightful female lead. She's tall and muscular and an expert sailor and fighter, as well as bold and strong-willed, and she feels self-conscious about absolutely none of that. She's haunted by the memory of a past where she never left like she truly belonged anywhere despite being surrounded by people who genuinely cared for and loved her, and for all her confidence and bravery, there's something soft and fragile in her. She relishes the sensual pleasures of fine foods, fine drinks, fine clothes, a fine smoke, and good sex. She feels the weight of the world on her shoulders, even when her rational mind tells her she shouldn't, and puts her responsibilities before herself, even when they're self-imposed and away to run from what she really wants and fears. She's only too aware of the limitations she was born with and the agency and relative privilege she holds thanks to the life she was fortunate enough to be in a position to build for herself. She's a swaggering girlboss and a pathetic girlfailure and such a nerd and I say all these things with all the affection in the world. I need the "nice but there's something off about it that I can't quite pinpoint but still prevents me from liking it more" illustration of her on the cover to be replaced by a manga-style drawing of her as an Ikeda Crossdressing Female Character. She's... almost perfect. By which I mean, I wish she was a little more imperfect. It's not that she's irritatingly flawless or never does anything dumb: in fact, one of her actions in the last chapters made me literally go "oh, you idiot. That was so incredibly stupid. I love you." But Mattie sometimes thinks of herself as bad person, someone who doesn't really deserve good things happening to her, and... I wish I'd gotten to see more of the reasons behind that. There are mentions, scattered throughout the book, that she used to be a far less pleasant and far more dangerous person to be around, someone brash and stubborn and even reckless, but when we meet her in the story, the impression is that she's mostly already grown past that. She cultivates a reputation as a careless, selfish hedonist, but she's both deeper and better than that mask. She apparently went through a phase where she hooked up with pretty people for no-strings-attached sex and then dumped them as soon as they showed any emotional attachment to her. She's great with disguises and, therefore, great at lying. She's perfectly comfortable with and perfectly good at violence, and even enjoys it to a point, and her threats should never be taken as idle, and I fully believe she's killed people in cold blood and would do it again if necessary, but the way she's shown to use violence on-page is measured and smart, never really excessive or uncalled-for. I simply wish I could have gotten to see some lingering spark of that youthful Mattie who's just hinted at and who probably ran around doing all sorts of crazy things while looking for herself. Both because I think Mattie's "I'm no good" musings would have felt like they had more substance that way and because... well, frankly, it would have been kind of hot.

Oliver is pretty adorable, too. A somewhat stuffy, flailing, fish-out-of-water gentleman with a good heart, thrown into situations ranging from the unexpected to the absurd from his point of view but always, eventually, working to do his best to keep his head on straight, find the silver lining or at least the drive to pull through, and adapt. Mattie's sweet Sunshine boy, kind, thoughtful, and surprisingly open-minded, but not entirely immune to being blinded to the realities around him by his own status and wealth and having to reassess his own perceptions and feelings. His growth, unlike Mattie's, can be seen through the whole novel, as he reflects and matures and gains experience and becomes firmer in his convinctions, more confident in himself, and simultaneously more willing to pursue what he wants and less willing to take any crap. At times, this transformation mixed with his habit of making assumptions and what seemed to me like a slight tendency for self-righteousness or even presumption in ways that rubbed me wrong and had me thinking, "oh, come off it!"... but it was difficult to ever actively dislike him or be properly mad at him when, more often than not, the wrongness of his own assumptions ended up smacking him right in the face full-force, he still needed the help and support and advice of other characters to the end instead of becoming some kind of Infallible Self-Reliant Perfect Man, and even his best, most justified, and most important attempt to do the Right Thing and be a hero had him suffering the aforementioned Bad Things, and reacting to them not quite with the stoicism he might have wished to, but in some utterly human ways, including a certain momentary unfairness when it was all over.... that I honestly hoped would last just a little longer, but made sense both in the way it came on and in the way it was resolved.

As for the femdom aspect... I also wished there was more of that, ngl. There are a pegging scene involving some mild sensory deprivation and honor bondage and another scene with Oliver subbing that includes bondage, mild knife play, orgasm control, and just a little bit of pain play, and they're both lovely, intimate and intense. There's also a scene where, despite running the show, Oliver explicitly does so to serve Mattie and take care of her, in an admiring and rather hurt/comfort-y way that tugged at my heartstrings and made me feel a lot of warmy fuzzy feelings. And the gendered-tropes-bending of the heroine being the swashbuckling pirate and the hero being the pure and initially naive English Rose is used to great effect, too, with Oliver finding Mattie attractive before he even finds out she's a woman (they're the elusive bi4bi couple that "clearly" everyone claims to want just for the brownie points but is unwilling to actually write or read about, btw), being constantly intrigued by the mixing and alternating of masculinity and femininity in her behavior, personality, and body and overall simply smitten with the totality of who she is, and going from "is it effeminate of me to wear a woman's clothes if she wears men's clothing?" to "kicking my ass while teaching me to fight? Hot. Using make-up and packers to look even more convincing as a man? Hot. Masculine fragrances? Hot and I want them on me precisely because they're hers." But despite all of that, I'd say this is a "switch romance," more than the "femdom romance" I was looking for. Or at least, it's a "verse romance." Oliver doesn't seem like much of a dom to me, and he's really into Mattie dominating him, but he's pretty toppy and often likes to take the reins and issue (mostly casual) orders. He's also the one to initiate most of the sex and even the kissing between them, though Mattie's usually quick, sure, and enthusiastic in her reactions and gives as good as she gets, so to say, even when he catches her off-guard. Mattie, on the other hand, genuinely enjoys setting up or improvising scenes where she can take charge and take control, and not for any "oh, she's had such a hard life, full of trauma and sorrow, and that is the only possible reason why she would ever feel the need to be some sort of ice queen and be unable to let herself be vulnerable and pliant all the time like a normal woman :(" bs, but she does also love her newfound, growing trust in Oliver and how it allows her to give up control and let herself be either pampered or overwhelmed, but always cherished no matter what, and the novelty of feeling like that. But anyway, the romance and its erotic elements are very much not about "force and/or seduce the domme into realizing she's actually a switch/sub" or "correct the wayward gender-noncomforming woman," and once I got over the initial disappointment, I appreciated the natural, and occasionally cheeky, push-and-pull of their dynamic.

Plus, some of Oliver's toppiness and Mattie's being too into it not to let him get away with it actually read more as a "cute, sweet heroine grows some self-confidence and enough of a spine to surprise her uncommunicative, rakish/brooding hero with her more feisty side" situation in reverse. The first time I thought that, I told myself I was probably just seeing things or even trying to delude myself, projecting my own wishes and expectations on the book, but... yeah, no, I figured I was right on the money when Mattie did The Thing That Made Me Call Her An Idiot, and you can't change my mind. Not that their story is a play-by-play of that exact dynamic, but to me, it feels close enough to be a bit of a bonus, or at least, the compensation I found myself irrationally wanting when I realized I'd been reading a different story than what I'd hoped for.

Somewhat in that vein, there are a lot of small things in What the Parrot Saw that I thought at various points might spoil my reading experience and then surprisingly didn't, at all, or at least, didn't bother me nearly as much as I imagined they would. The biggest one, I think, was the ending. I don't want to spoil it but... for a moment, as the final chapter was getting closer and closer, I really dreaded it engaging in some tropes I'd hate to see appear in this novel, and especially inflicted on Mattie, and looking back to earlier parts of the book and wondering if certain lines and passages should have rang an alarm bell in my head and read as foreshadowing. As the story reached it last pages, I could finally breath a sigh of relief and enjoy a conclusion that was both adorable and quite reasonable, but that did, admittedly, make me want to shout "well, you could have just SAID so!" at Oliver over a certain issue and also, briefly, slap him upside the head for a specific thing he said that I felt misrepresented the choice he was asking Mattie to make to her own face. Even so, it seemed to me that, while certain problems that could have kept Oliver and Mattie apart were acknowledged and resolved in a satisfying manner (and even then, some did leave me more satisfied than others), other issues that I thought would be just as (if not more) fundamental and/or pressing weren't even adequately considered. And those were, imo, things that would affect Mattie the most, as a person and beyond her relationship with Oliver. I'm not someone who hates or love epilogues on principle, and in most cases, I can take them or leave them... but here, I found myself really, really wanting one to show me Mattie not only adapting to their new life together, but adapting it to herself, using her heaps of hard-won life experience to say "wait, that's bullshit" to anything in it that may, indeed, be bullshit and then change it even just in some small way or some inevitably limited context, with Oliver and all their loved ones ready to back her up and maybe smooth things over as needed in her wake. That would be a very believable conclusion to her story, as well as Oliver's, in my head -- even the most believable, perhaps. But I never got to see it. And, honestly? I could have used the reassurance. Because, here's the thing: I could also see things go wrong. And, despite Oliver's very clear and convincing arguments about The Important Thing being the two of them getting to just be together and the high likelihood of him really putting her comfort above anything else, I felt that, if things did go wrong, it wouldn't be quite that easy to change everything up again, even with both of them willing to go for it...

But tbf, I think that's really the main thing that put me off during the course of the novel, and that should say something about how much I liked it overall. There were also some characters and scenes I would have loved to see more of and delve deeper into, some beautiful landascapes I wished the author would indulge more in and build a more immersive atmosphere on, a few repetitions I thought could be maybe trimmed down a bit... but for me, it stiil wasn't hard to look past these things. What the Parrot Saw was a smooth, quick read, and even when I wasn't really in the mood to keep reading, it was always for some reason unrelated to the book itself... and a series of "okay, juuuust one more chapter"s would ensue whenever I got my will to read anything at all back.

Also, the titular parrot is adorable. I feel I haven't found the right place to mention this until know, but it should be mentioned. He thinks he's a cat! And no one has permission to tell him otherwise! And I would absolutely give him chin scritches and treats.

All things considered, I might actually read the previous books in the series. Probably not to review them as part of this little project, but... who knows?

The one that comes immediately before this one, the unfortunately as well as inaccurately named The Pirate's Secret Baby, features an eight-year-old Mattie (who is, it seems, already anything but a proper little lady) and is about her dad and stepmom falling in love. These last two characters both appear in What the Parrot Saw and seem like an interesting couple, with him still being a charming, flirtatious "peacock" of a man even after settling down and her seeming like a much more sensible and down-to-earth type even while accepting her family's quirks and unconventional sides. But their relationship apparently started out much rockier than what it eventually became, with her being strict and headstrong, him arrogant and prone to rash decisions, and both of them sassing each other out any chance they got. Reviews of The Pirate's Secret Baby also talk about her having some domme leanings and... using a scarf on him at some point? Despite him apparently kidnapping her sometime before that? Which makes me think that, at the very least, Mattie may get more than her taste for piracy from her dad, and makes this pairing sound just so appealing to me... but then again, I have a bit of a thing for "she's plain and simple, he's flamboyant and dramatic, she can 100% wreck him and he loves that." Alas, it seems that, unlike in What the Parrot Saw, the sex scenes in The Pirate's Secret Baby are mostly or even all fade-to-black...

On the other hand, the first novel in the High Seas series, Sea Change, features another crossdressing heroine on a ship. It seems she's not quite as good as passing as a man, but I'm pretty sure she ends up becoming a certain mentor figure Mattie remembers from her teen years, a very direct and pragmatic woman who gave her some very important, if embarrassing, lessons. No idea about the sex or lack thereof here, but I'd check it out just for the hope of more fun, gender-y stuff, as the hero seems to be one of the few characters her her ruse really works on.

The second novel, Castaway Dreams, also stars a character briefly mentioned in What the Parrot Saw, but it seems like a more usual "he's the grumpy one, she's the sunshine one" romance, with a side of "he thinks all the stereotypically feminine stuff she cares about is dumb and useless and therefore she's a vapid airhead." Which... doesn't sound particularly up my alley, tbh. But as I like Marshall's writing and this seems a very comedic book, much more than the other ones in the series, from the blurb, I think I'd give it a try, too.

#books #book review #book recs #book recommendations #romance #historical romance #pirate romance #romance novels #f-dom romance #< let's see if that's enough not to the get the post nuked #what the parrot saw #darlene marshall

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