Another absolute banger in the Gentleman Bastard series. This one had a bit of a different tone from the first book - my instinct is to call it less joyful? Expanding on that, I would say that during the first book, my primary emotion on every page was joy - glee, even - as the story moved from plot beat to plot beat in a frenzy of high stakes pacing and con artist/heist tropes. By contrast, every page I turned in the second book was like a slow building anxiety attack, as consequences came home to roost. "Lies" was like a drunken debauch and "Red Seas" feels like the ensuing hangover. In a really, really good way!

The turn to naval arts was a great way to continue the pace of worldbuilding without continuing the "As you know" vibe of the first book. Here, Locke and Jean are put in an environment that's just as unfamiliar to them as it is to the audience, so we all get to learn. I loved Drakasha and Ezri. It was a shame that the trend continued for female love interests (or potential love interests) not being able to survive the book. Apparently the Crooked Warden ships JeanLocke as hard as I do. (Speaking of, if you do ship it - WOW was this book a delight.) But there are more female characters who aren't love interests to be left alive to do stuff, so I'm not all that upset about it.

It also felt like we were put on high alert for Bondsmage nonsense in the first chapter, and then little came of it (save explaining some motivations later for some people to be messing with us), so I hope that the third book follows up on this plot thread.