4.5 stars for a little bit of lag and a little bit of eww. Otherwise fantastic! Way better than the first book. I love the multiple stories in one book but how they all connect and the ending made the middle purposeful. Really enjoyed and looking forward to rereading in the future.

This book isn't as good as the first and third book in my opinion but I still love it just the same.
this is my second time reading it.

Fun action story about a boy and his telepathic dog, and all their adventures, at sea, in the mountains and caves, in town and countryside, with pirates, goats and a bear/man.

It was a good book, an easy read, a similar formula to the first and a good dose of my childhood nostalgia.

I'm not sure I'd recommend it to other adults unless they were a fan of the first back in the day. However, the first is to this day my favourite book so its hard to share the same limelight.

I'm glad I read it. The stories flow well and it adds to the Sea-faring that I suspect many readers wanted more of.

A worthy sequel.

“Empolgante como uma boa luta de espadas!” (Barnes & Noble)

“Como em todos os seus romances, Jacques evoca um mundo plenamente realizado e colorido e preenche as páginas com bastante criatividade.” (Publishers Weekly)

It’s been a very long time since I read this second book in the series! There’s so much that I had forgotten, but it was such a pleasure to re-discover some of my favorite stories from the trilogy!⁣
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Like the first book, this one contains two of Ben and Ned’s adventures in time. Ben and Ned are our boy and dog duo, blessed with immortality and the ability to communicate with each other in exchange for traveling the Earth and helping those in need. Their escape from the Flying Dutchman is still fairly recent, less than a decade has passed when we pick up the story. ⁣
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The pair are traveling through South America and end up at a port frequented by pirates. There they befriend the good-hearted Captain Raphael Thuron, and hastily join his pirate crew. But their ship is being pursued by a rival, Captain Rocco Madrid! Whilst the two pirate ships attempt to outrun each other, they catch the attention of another vessel, a ruthless English privateer! What ensues is a wild sea-chase, Thuron’s ship trying to outmaneuver the other two as they escape across the Atlantic. It’s hilarious and exciting and so enjoyable to read. The author spent time at sea himself, and you can tell in the way he explains sailing and ship mechanics; it makes the story very immersive.⁣
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The second tale follows up the first, as our duo is now traveling through France, having left the seas behind for the moment. There they befriend Dominic, a highly skilled artist known as the “Facemaker of Sabada,” and Karay, a pickpocket, singer, and all around clever girl. The group has teamed up to rid the area of the Razan, a terror-provoking cult of thieves that hide themselves in the Pyrenees mountains between France and Spain. Their most terrifying adventure yet, they’ll have to survive gun fights, avalanches, and bears to make it out of this one alive.⁣
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What I love most about this novel is how it comes full circle. The final scenes find Ben and Ned back on the ocean, paying homage to Raphael Thuron and their origins on the Flying Dutchman. It’s a very satisfying ending, and an incredible story.

again with Brian Jacques, you cannot help but be drawn in and hooked on his writing. i think when i first read this book, i rushed it and did not appreciate it. this time however, i took my time and was able to absorb the details. i am very much looking forward to reading the final book in this series.

Let's get one thing strait; I love Brian Jacques. As in LOVE. And when you love something or someone, you tend to be pretty forgiving of its/their faults. That being said, I really didn't enjoy this book or it's predecessor Castaways of the Flying Dutchman, nearly as much as I enjoy Jacques' Redwall series. It seems as if, in this series, all the faults present in the Redwall books have been magnified. One of the big problems in this one is the lack of a real sense of peril. The villains are so ridiculous that you never truly fear them. Now, of course this is a young adult novel, so Jacques would want to keep anything truly frightening to a minimum. But still, even if I were reading this as twelve year old, I'd feel as if I was being patronized. And it seems as if one of the good guys is always in the right place at the right time, or knows someone who was at the right place at the right time, and overheard the villains plotting and scheming, and so they know not to meet at the belltower at ten o'clock like they planned, because so-and-so is going to be there. And everyone the main characters meet is a good old soul, who takes to them immediately and is willing to go out of their way to help them, or is bad, and they instinctively know it and avoid him/her. Also, and again, this is probably because it's intended for a young audience, all the characters are either Good and Pure, or Evil and Devious. There's a very clear cut Good vs. Evil theme, and I truly believe that people in the YA category can handle the "shades of gray" element that is in a lot of adult fare.

I feel very let down. And even though I'm already halfway through the next book, after this I'm sticking to Redwall.

This was a great book! I love the characters and the adventures they have together. I was really excited that the first story was set on the sea because I love pirate stories. It also connected itself really nicely with the 2nd story. I know this book is written for a younger audience but I still think it's a good book for any age.

Lovely book, as always a joy to read Brian Jacques.

I think I am sad that there is only one book left to this series. At least we have Redwall and this series to remember Brian Jacques by, such a talented story teller.