Can sapphic pirates ever retire?

This book got my adrenaline pumping and my heart beating fast. In Uncharted, Lady Georgina Elizabeth Millicent Cressida Wright reunited with her childhood friend Lou (just Lou) who had, in the meantime, become the infamous Captain Cinder. Unbroken picks up just before Uncharted ended and is told, this time, not from George’s point of view but from Lou’s.

Lou is ready to leave the sea behind and settle somewhere with George. George’s plans differ slightly, and she bristles under Lou’s overprotectiveness. When the brokers Lou thought she was rid of threaten George, Captain Cinder leads her crew on a perilous hunt.

Like many strong female characters, Lou hides – including from herself – a vulnerability that makes her much more relatable than a (former) pirate should be. Telling this second book from her point of view is a brilliant idea. Unbroken is full of twists and turns, of betrayals and fights (pirates, what can you do), of character growth too, Lou’s but also, through her eyes, George’s. The crew is as awesome as it was in Uncharted, I love Maro, Rosie and Ender. There are new characters too, one in particular, from Lou’s past, that I ended up liking a lot more than I expected.

The ending is open enough to allow for new adventures while not leaving the reader hanging and I was delighted to find out that a third book, Unleashed, will be coming, probably in 2023.