Red Seas Under Red Skies (Gentleman Bastard, #2)

by Scott Lynch

[Melanie]

Review originally posted at RabidReads.ca.

After finishing The Lies of Locke Lamora, I was excited to pick up the second book. The first book ends on interesting note with not everything working out according to plan. I was curious to see where Lynch would take us in the second book.

This story picks up a few years after the ending of the first book. Locke and Jean have left the town where they’ve lived almost their entire life. They are in the new town of Tal Verrar. They are still up to their shenanigans. They have their set on a very large con, bigger than anything they’ve ever done. They’ve been building up to this for two years.

Everything doesn’t go according to plan, once again, for our duo. The Bonds Mages haven’t forgotten about how the pair wronged one of their own (though in my opinion, the mage had it coming). Jean and Locke are getting blackmailed by more than one person, while dodging the death threat presented by the Bonds Mages.

I had a lot of fun with this second story in the series. Jean and Locke are really likable characters. I really love this pair. There are some other great characters in this book. The one I liked to most is a pirate that Jean and Locke end up working with. Zamira Drakasha is a black woman around 40ish years old with two toddlers. She runs her pirate ship like you would expect any pirate to run one. She does it all while raising her two kids, with the help of her other female shipmates. I love her cutthroat attitude. She is loyal to her family and her shipmates and no one else. She was just an amazing character.

This story is a little slower at times compared to the first book. I again listened at increased speed compared to my normal listening speed. I’m really interested to see where this story goes next. I’m sure that Jean and Locke will continue to find themselves in trouble. They will never seem to learn out keep themselves out of trouble.

Narration
Again, I enjoyed the narration of this series. Michael Page did a good job. There were more women in this story that the first book. Women aren’t his strong suit, but they weren’t bad. I look forward to listening to the last book in this trilogy.