This turned out much better than I thought it would, for a book I started reading mostly out of spite. I didn’t love the first book in this trilogy, but I had bought the first two together at a used book store, and I wanted to see the villains get their comeuppance, so I kept going.
There was no comeuppance! Instead there were redemption arcs! I don’t want redemption – I want vengeance. One of the bad guys did get stranded on an island, which was pretty cool. But the wannabe pirate king is still pillaging and slaughtering and getting everything he wants, and the horrible little girl is admittedly much less horrible. I don’t know if she’s up there at pirate levels of villainousness, but lord, she was unlikeable in the first book. She’s much better now.
Let me back up a little bit and try to do the usual plot summary. The Vestrit family is continuing their struggle to stay solvent and together against all odds. Daughter Althea has grown up a lot since the first book, and is much less selfish and whiny. She and some friends hatch a daring plot to rescue her family’s liveship (captured by the above-mentioned pirate) and its captain (who they don’t even really want back). To do this, they’re sailing in the mad liveship, who has killed two previous crews and likes to scream incoherently at the ocean, scaring the hell out of his newest crew.
Meanwhile, some other members of the family have escaped to the Rain Wilds, where ancient secrets start to come to light, and where the somewhat boring stretches of sea serpent backstory start to add a little more to the story. Malta the former brat (she’s 13, I believe?) is being seriously courted by a 25-year-old eligible bachelor from the Rain Wilds. Ick.
The story ends with everybody in danger, of course, so I might as well soldier on and read the last one. Maybe somebody will finally feed the pirate captain to a sea serpent and he’ll be slowly bored to death.
