Our Flag Means Death meets Six of Crows in Running Close to the Wind, a queer pirate adventure from the author of A Taste of Gold and Iron, Alexandra Rowland.

‘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 Helvaçi, former field agent of the Arasti 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 Arasti ambassador to the Isles . . .

Brother Julian, a beautiful, mysterious new member of the crew with secrets of his own . . .

. . . And the fact that they’re 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, they’ll all be as wealthy as kings – and, more importantly, they’ll 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