Piratica II: The Return to Parrot Island - Tanith Lee

I was somewhat disappointed with Tanith Lee's Piratica: Return to Parrot Island as I didn't think it was as good as Piratica. Art Blastside managed to dodge the gallows at the end of Piratica and married her true love, Felix Phoenix. However, life ashore is proving too tame for the pirate queen, and when the Government invites her to become a legal pirate (a privateer) harrying the French, who resent the fact that England is now a Free Republic and have gone to war over it), Art jumps at the chance to go back to sea again. Unfortunately, Art hasn't anticipated that Naval war is horrific, and even more worrying is the fact that Little Goldie Girl, her arch-rival for the hand of Felix Phoenix (with whom she has had a row about her desire to go back to sea) is hell-bent on revenge. To that end, Goldie Girl kidnaps Felix and takes him aboard her ship; she intends to go back to Parrot Island to collect the treasure maps which Art and her crew had dug up during the events of Piratica. Art, meanwhile, is busy fooling the French and the Franco-Spanish captains, and even manages to prise a "blueprint" for a new supership from one gullible French captain !