Our Flag Means Death meets Six of Crows in this queer pirate adventure from the author of A Taste of Gold and Iron.

'Come for the irrepressible gremlin of a narrator, stay for the plot-relevant cake competitions! A whip-smart, hilarious and exuberant high seas romp' Freya Marske, Sunday Times bestselling author of A Marvellous Light

Avra Helvaci, former field agent of the Arashti Ministry of Intelligence, has accidentally stolen the single most expensive secret in the world and the only place to flee with a secret that big is the open sea.

To find a buyer with deep enough pockets, Avra must work with his on-again, off-again ex, the pirate Captain Teveri az-Haffar. Together, they will have to risk journeying to the isolated pirate republic of the Isles of Lost Souls. The only things in their way? A calculating new Arashti ambassador to the Isles; Brother Julian, a beautiful, mysterious new member of the crew with secrets of his own; and the fact that theyre sailing straight into sea serpent breeding season and almost certain doom.

But if they can find a way to survive and sell the secret on the black market, theyll all be as wealthy as kings and, more importantly, theyll be legends . . .

'Uproariously funny, exquisitely witty, brimming with buckling of swashes and scuttling of butts' Premee Mohamed, Nebula Award-winning author of Beneath the Rising