Red Seas Under Red Skies

Executive Summary: This book is uneven, and I didn't enjoy it nearly as much as [b:The Lies of Locke Lamora 127455 The Lies of Locke Lamora (Gentleman Bastard, #1) Scott Lynch http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1320532483s/127455.jpg 2116675], but the second half more than makes up for the first to make this an enjoyable read.Full ReviewThis book is very uneven. The beginning was painfully slow. It seemed like little happened and Mr. Lynch was determined to describe everything in minute details.A lot of what did happen seemed like a rehash of the first book in a new city and not nearly as fun.Locke and Jean are dealing with the aftermath of the first book and things aren't going well. Like the last book this book mixes chapters of the present with flashback chapters filling in the reader on past events as they are relevant to the current story. I still think this works well.Thankfully somewhere in the middle or so the book takes a turn. We have ships, and pirates, and of course plots within plots.This book adds some greatly needed female characters, and provides interesting superstitions about sailing a boat without female officers and cats. Cats? Yeah, though kittens seem preferred.The humor and the relationship of Jean and Locke continue, albeit under even more strain than the last novel. There are a lot of great quotes to choose from again.I would almost call this book stand alone like the last save for some very major plot points left unresolved at the end and obviously the need to have read [b:The Lies of Locke Lamora 127455 The Lies of Locke Lamora (Gentleman Bastard, #1) Scott Lynch http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1320532483s/127455.jpg 2116675] first.Overall the second half of the book was much better and despite the slow start the book really got it's hooks into me and was hard to put down.I debated between 4 stars and 3 on here and decided to round up since it ended better than it began.3.5 Stars