The Gentlemen Bastards are excellent con artists on the land, but then unforeseen events send them onto the waves to become pirates.  Red Seas Under Red Skies is the second book of Scott Lynch’s Gentlemen Bastards sequences as Locke and Jean find their plans upset by politics, the one type of con they tend to avoid.

Locke and Jean are working a two-year con of the owner of the grandest casino in Tal Verrar, the Sinspire, when their plans are upended by the Bondmagi threatening revenge.  They decide to get start their endgame with Locke admitting to the owner he and Jean have been cheating other gamblers to set things up only to be abducted by the secret police of Tal Verrar’s military commander-in-chief.  The Archon poisons the duo to force them to work for him to become pirates and get allies from the Ghostwind Islands to attack shipping around Tal Verrar so the archon can get money to strengthen the navy from the city’s merchant council as well as gain the political upper hand, but promises them temporary antidotes.  Suddenly in the archon’s service, the duo use this new wrinkle as part of their Sinspire con as the owner is an “ally” of the merchants whose wealth is in his vault.  After a six-week crash course in sailing, the duo and a ship’s master spring prisoners from a military prison and take an outfitted ship provided by the archon towards with Locke as the charismatic captain.  Things go well until the ship master dies just before their first storm and it become obvious that Locke and Jean are not sailors and there is a mutiny with Locke and Jean left on a little boat in the ocean.  Two hours later, a real pirate takes their former ship and the duo are rescued through the pirate captain finds their cover story fishy but allows them to stay alive.  Locke and Jean prove themselves on the ship and in the raiding another ship thus becoming full-fledge crewmen then reveal to the captain everything.  After arriving at the Ghostwind Islands, the pirate captain tells the other major captains of the archon’s plan and her plan to end it by “playing” along until they get a shot at killing the archon, the other captain’s agree either wholeheartedly or begrudgingly.  Weeks later, Locke and Jean report to the archon about their adventures and that they convinced a captain to hit the waters around Tal Verrar as well as continue their Sinspire con.  The pirates begin doing small time ship raids and mount a massive assault on a town to the northwest where peasants let themselves be put through cruel and humiliating games by nobles for money.  The archon isn’t pleased and demands a proper raid or never see him again, but then another pirate captain appears and attacks their ship believing his previous decision to approve the plan unwise.  Locke, Jean, and their pirate allies are victorious but at a personal cost to Jean and they decide to end things in Tal Verrar across the board.  Locke and Jean enlist the aid of the merchants against the archon then finish their Sinspire job by stealing the owner’s paintings then getting captured by the secret police who are waylaid and killed by the merchant’s operatives who take their masks and then proceed to the archon who attempts to kill them when the false secret police stage their coup though during the confrontation the chemist of the poison is killed and only one vile of antidote is available for Locke and Jean.  The two give the former archon to their pirate allies to do with as they please and go to sell the paintings only to find their replicas, getting only a fraction of what they were expecting.  Locke secretly gives the antidote to Jean and the duo sail off to the unknown.

While the overall book a good, after the halfway point it felt like there was a series of “add-ons” where people were introduced or events would happen that would be the next narrative turn of events with the set up for the pirate ship-to-ship battle the biggest example.  In contrast, the flashback intrudes to the events after the previous book up and during their set up for the Sinspire con not only gave the reader how Locke and Jean got to where they were at the start of this book but also foreshadowed things that you were looking forward to play out in the narrative flow.  The further developments of Locke and Jean were excellently written, and the major secondary characters were fun as well which compensated for the narrative “add-ons”.

Red Seas Under Red Skies is a nice follow up to the first Gentleman Bastards book, but also felt like a let down as well.  While Scott Lynch continued to develop Locke and Jean as well as creating some good secondary characters, the narrative flow felt off and as the book went along it was telling.  Overall a nice book with an ending that makes a reader curious about what will happen next.

The second book is one of my comfort reads, but the world this series is set in is comforting in its own way. Not because it's an inherently good world - there are a lot of things about it that are terrible. But it's a world where rulers, if they fail to do what they can to properly protect their people, eventually end up paying a price. Good rulers can theoretically live forever (if I remember right, the longest lived one in the series made it about 800 years). Bad rulers, not so much.

When you need to refresh your spirit, start over, or change your life, sailing the world is the answer. There are a few tips below that explain why a cruise or sailing excursion can change your life. You may not know what is coming next, but these cruising/sailing tips will help you achieve the clarity that you need. Plus, you will feel like a changed person when you get back home after days or even weeks at sea.

Cruises Take You Away From Reality

Once you get on a cruise ship or sailboat, you will leave reality behind. The only people who know what it is like to live at-sea are the employees on the boat. Because of this, you will feel like you are in another world. The boat feels foreign, and you need time to adjust to your new surroundings.

However, trips like transatlantic cruise sailings give you time to reflect on your life, your path, and what you want to do next. You may need time to decide what you will do when you get home because you are content with your life for the most part. However, you may need time to decide what to do next because you want to change jobs, move, get divorced, find love, or do something completely different with your life.

You Will See New Places

Taking a big cruise will allow you to see new places that you would never have seen on your own. The cruise lets you stop in beautiful places that will amaze you, and you may even be inspired to move to these locations. You might meet people that you will call friends for years to come, or you might get a business idea that you can take home.

You are getting out of your comfort zone by taking a long cruise, and the cruise will give you ideas for a new future. You could sail up the coast of Canada before crossing to England, and you might want to move to the Nova Scotia coast when you get home because it is the place you need to be for the next chapter of your life.

You Will Find Out What You Miss

A long trip like this teaches you what you miss and what you do not miss. You will take time to contact certain people when the ship stops, or you may send pictures to people that you love. However, you will discover that you do not miss other things about your home life.

You may decide that you need to end a relationship, or you may be inspired to quit your job. You might decide that you need to reconnect with someone that you want to share the cruise with, or you may start planning future vacations you want to take with people that you care about. The cruise teaches you what you truly value so that you can prioritize your life when you get home.

You Have Time To Read And Journal

You can spend on your cruise reading and journaling. You may prefer to commit your thoughts to paper, or you might read a book that you have meant to get around to. Because of this, your transatlantic cruise sailings might give birth to the writing you always wanted to do, or you might be inspired by the book you just read. You can reconnect with your inner self, and you might find new passions that you did not know you had. You never have time to journal or read like you will on a long cruise.

Conclusion

The transatlantic cruise that you have planned will help you change your life for the better. You will go to new places, meet new people, and decide to change your life on this trip. Plus, you can reconnect with your inner self so that you can go home with plans to do the things that are most important to you.

Overall this book is boring. There's really nothing that happens except taking strolls, playing cards and having balls/parties. Of course there's talking, lots of talking.

That being said there's a lot here that modern romance and YA novels can learn here.

First of all Elizabeth (the MC) never doubts her beauty and it's Darcy making a snide remark about her that makes Lizzy hate Mr. Darcy.

Also here we have the male falling into basic "insta-love" after he sees Lizzy a few times. Her on the other hand is of course hating him as he is NOT making himself a good person.

Lizzy also is one to speak her mind and tell him off as well as his mother. She's not a shrinking violet that most female main characters are. She doesn't let people treat her as a doormat. Another thing to be taken from this book.

Now another thing is that after Lizzy reject Darcy';s marriage proposal, he doesn't keep harassing her to get a yes, that most books do. Nor does he do ONE good thing in saving her life that she suddenly likes him for. He actually works to build her trust back up.

Where he told Mr. Bingley to give up on Jane, he rectifies this by telling him the found truth. He helps Lydia out when she runs off with Wickman to "save her honour". He also discharges some of Wickmans debt so Lydia can live better. (They don't as both of them pretty much waste all thier money frivolously). It's also only after these things that Lizzy starts to like and then love Mr. Darcy. So a good half of the book she hates him.

Most of the love interests are assholes and remain assholes and we are supposed to love them for this.

Finally Lizzy gets to tell Darcy's mom off after she insults her and her family. Most modern MCs just roll over and take it. This also doesn't affect the way Mr. Darcy views Lizzy in any negative way.

The parts which should be left behind are of course the whole "women as property" and the "marriage for status". Also it says that Lizzy is "poor" but she has a few servants so we know she isn't that poor. Just a poor noble. Also there's talk about hos women are a certain way and of course Lydia running of with a man "ruins her" as if she was some object to be used. Also the fact that Lydia is 16 and Wickman is 25 is pretty gross.

Also there's no real plot to speak of other than talking and talking and more talking. The only point of this talking is to get the girls married. There's no real big thing. You can call this book a slice of life in that regard.

Overall there's a lot modern books can get from this book, but leave the past garbage in the past.

Ah yes the good old "a woman is ruined if a man rapes her." Something that is carried forward even today.