A Swift and Savage Tideby Chloe Neill
Rating: ★★★★
isbn: 9781984806703
Series: Captain Kit Brightling #2
Publication Date: November 30, 2021
Pages: 342
Genre: Fantasy, Fiction
Publisher: Berkley
Captain Kit Brightling is Aligned to the magic of the sea, which makes her an invaluable asset to the Saxon Isles and its monarch, Queen Charlotte. The Isles and its allies will need every advantage they can get: Gerard Rousseau, the former Gallic emperor and scourge of the Continent, has escaped his island prison to renew his quest for control of the Continent.
Gerard has no qualms about using dangerous magic to support his ambitions, so Kit and the crew of her ship, the Diana, are the natural choice to find him—and help stop him. But then Kit’s path unexpectedly crosses with that of the dashing and handsome Rian Grant, Viscount Queenscliffe, who’s working undercover on the Continent in his own efforts to stop Gerard. And he’s not the only person Kit is surprised to see. An old enemy has arisen, and the power he’ll wield on Gerard’s behalf is beautiful and terrible. Sparks will fly and sails will flutter as Kit and crew are cast into the seas of adventure to fight for queen and country.
I read the first in this series purely on the strength of how much I enjoy Neill’s other series; the premise of this one didn’t appeal to me on the surface, but so many of my UF series have either finished, or just take a long tome between books. I’m glad I did – I really enjoyed the first one, and when I saw this one was out, I snatched it up.
A Swift and Savage Tide takes up where A Bright and Breaking Sea left off. The easiest way to describe the premise is to call it an alternate reality where magic exists but is banned from use; Napoleon by any other name is still Napoleon, and the Great Briton by any other name is still the UK. In this reality, women are equals to men on the sea, and captain Kit Brightling is a well respected and daring captain of the Diana. Or course there’s a romantic interest, and of course he’s a Viscount, but he’s a reluctant one (of course) and more interested in serving his queen in his capacity of Colonel in the army, but his intelligence work puts him on the Diana and he and Kit have to work together to hunt down a threat they thought was dead before he destroys the Queen’s navy and invades.
There’s nothing deep here, except perhaps the sea they sail on. It’s just a rollicking good time, with likeable characters, a decent plot, and the kind of well-written atmosphere one can escape into and lose some time in. As with all Neill’s series, I enjoy the camaraderie the characters share, and healthy relationships abound, with a delightful lack of nemesis’. I was sorry when it ended, and I hope it won’t be too long before the third one comes out.