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A review by afantasysky
Running Close to the Wind: A Queer Pirate Fantasy Adventure! by Alexandra Rowland
3.0
Running Close to the Wind by Alexandra Rowland was not what I expected. I absolutely loved A Taste of Gold and Iron and this is set in the same world so I immediately wanted to read it. It is however a very different vibe and fundamentally a comedy. This means that if the humour suits you, you'll have a great time, however if you're like me and tire of sex jokes quickly, you'll probably want to give up a couple chapters in. I didn't give up, and did end up having fun while rolling my eyes at points. ⭐⭐⭐
Avra, ex-intelligence agent, has stolen the biggest state secret and ends up teaming up with his ex Teveri, the captain of a pirate ship, to sell it for unimaginable amounts of money. Unfortunately it's not that simple and many antics ensue. First they have to decode the secret, but luckily the crew just picked up a scholar. The extremely beautiful Julian, a monk with "an inconvenient vow of celibacy". You can probably guess what comes next.
The main character Avra is extremely annoying at first. He rarely takes things seriously and is constantly trying to get people's attention by screaming and whining. He does get a bit more depth as the book progresses and that meant I enjoyed the second half of the book more. The most interesting thing about him is his luck, he is believed to be blessed by the goddess of luck. That leads to him winning all games of chance and an unlikely number of lucky coincidences.
The plot is fun, I enjoyed getting to see the pirate republic and the cake competition was highly entertaining. I did laugh at bits even if it wasn't all my kind of humour. I have more mixed feelings around the dynamic between Avra, Teveri and Jullian. Some of it is so well done as they get to know each other and see past the surface. However, I felt like a lot of the emotional depth we got in A Taste of Gold and Iron was missing, and instead we get a lot of talking and thinking about sex. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, but personally I've never found sex as a character motivation particularly interesting, I wanted more focus on the feelings.
Running Close to the Wind is out June 13th, thanks Netgalley and Pan Macmillan for the eARC!
Avra, ex-intelligence agent, has stolen the biggest state secret and ends up teaming up with his ex Teveri, the captain of a pirate ship, to sell it for unimaginable amounts of money. Unfortunately it's not that simple and many antics ensue. First they have to decode the secret, but luckily the crew just picked up a scholar. The extremely beautiful Julian, a monk with "an inconvenient vow of celibacy". You can probably guess what comes next.
The main character Avra is extremely annoying at first. He rarely takes things seriously and is constantly trying to get people's attention by screaming and whining. He does get a bit more depth as the book progresses and that meant I enjoyed the second half of the book more. The most interesting thing about him is his luck, he is believed to be blessed by the goddess of luck. That leads to him winning all games of chance and an unlikely number of lucky coincidences.
The plot is fun, I enjoyed getting to see the pirate republic and the cake competition was highly entertaining. I did laugh at bits even if it wasn't all my kind of humour. I have more mixed feelings around the dynamic between Avra, Teveri and Jullian. Some of it is so well done as they get to know each other and see past the surface. However, I felt like a lot of the emotional depth we got in A Taste of Gold and Iron was missing, and instead we get a lot of talking and thinking about sex. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, but personally I've never found sex as a character motivation particularly interesting, I wanted more focus on the feelings.
Running Close to the Wind is out June 13th, thanks Netgalley and Pan Macmillan for the eARC!