While good naval fiction, I don't think this book was as good as others in this series. At times it seemed Parkinson was rapidly going through some events to get them out of the way so he could concentrate on others. I also got the feeling he was perhaps interested in completing this series.

And as for the "love of his life," I'm not sure how I would feel if my wife told me on our wedding night, "You are the seventh man to have taken me." Perhaps things were different in the very early 19th century. Not that I might stop loving her, but just because I really didn't need to know that.

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