This book is seriously horribly written. The jostling between the past and present narratives, introducing and abandoning of minor characters and subplots and an over-developed mid-section followed by a slam-dunk surprise ending meant that I was frustrated with it a lot of the time. And yet, I couldn’t put it down. I read the whole book in one day. It’s a really interesting story and eventho there is a question at the beginning of the book – why were they sent on this voyage? – that you know will be answered by the end of it, it actually doesn’t have a lot of bearing on the story until the end. Up until the end you are caught up in sailing and hurricanes and it’s not until that part of the story is finished up that it switches gears (sloppily) to answering the questions. The concept is excellent and the sailing language and descriptions are really good as well, I just wish it was written better and then I wouldn’t be mildly ashamed to have enjoyed it so much.