Starred Review ALA Booklist (Thu Apr 28 00:00:00 CDT 2022)

Starred Review Following his beloved mother's suicide, Adrian Montague Lord-to-be who suffers from acute anxiety ceives her personal affects. Focusing on the broken spyglass she carried with her every day, he is compelled to learn why she specifically left it behind the day she died. Adrian sets out to learn the truth about the spyglass' significance, and his search for expert assistance leads him to a merchant who turns out to be "Monty" Montague, the brother he never knew existed. The two set off on perilous adventures from London to Rabat, Porto, Amsterdam, and Iceland, searching for answers to the questions that plague Adrian, reuniting with Felicity along the way. They encounter wrathful pirates, shattered promises, tempests at sea, life-threatening injury, interminable days of darkness, and joyful days of light. Series fans can expect another wonderful round of exciting journeys, unique personalities, surprising historical details, beautiful romance, and scrutiny of social-justice issues here. Adrian emerges as the most complex of the siblings as he searches for control over his mental illness. Clever sarcasm and humor balance his darker scenes, mental melees add depth of character, and perceived magic and ancient myth reveal his self-disruptive mind. In this final entry of The Montague Siblings series, emotions run tantalizingly high, characters from the previous books reappear, and loose ends are gracefully tied up in a fulfilling denouement.HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Both A Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue and A Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy were best sellers. Odds are this will be, too.

School Library Journal Starred Review (Tue Mar 01 00:00:00 CST 2022)

Gr 9 Up Adventure, ahoy! Nineteen-year-old Lord Adrian Montague is "sensitive as a new bruise," the secretly liberal son of a repressive father, and suspects that the mysterious death of his mother has something to do with the famous ghost ship The Flying Dutchman is it any wonder that he's a nervous wreck? He decides to investigate the reason for his mother's death and on the way, comes upon a series of startling revelations, beginning with the existence of his two pugnacious older siblings, Monty and Felicity. While Adrian's search for The Flying Dutchman takes him from the slums of London and the pirate republics of Morocco to the university crypts of Amsterdam and Icelandic ice fields, the more important journey is inward, as Monty and Felicity help him navigate and manage his anxiety and obsessive-compulsive tendencies. Lee draws a fine line, balancing Adrian's beliefs in the supernatural with the potential that he is haunted not by external forces but by his own mind. The novel palliates Adrian's insecurity with Monty's abrasive, bawdy charm and Felicity's uncompromising intellect. While sibling bonds take center stage in supporting Adrian's grieving process, fans of Monty and Percy will find satisfaction, too. Lee's writing is as exquisite as ever, in both the nuanced rendering of Adrian's emotional landscape and the gritty world surrounding him, with specific details, from coffee that's "viscous like saliva" to the handprints left by abandoned monkeys in a sailor's bar. VERDICT Fans and newcomers to Lee's trilogy will delight in a swashbuckling tale grounded in compassion and love. Katherine Magyarody

Kirkus Reviews

Adrian, the youngest of the Montague siblings, sails into tumultuous waters in search of answers about himself, the sudden death of his mother, and her mysterious, cracked spyglass.On the summer solstice less than a year ago, Caroline Montague fell off a cliff in Aberdeen into the sea. When the Scottish hostel where she was staying sends a box of her left-behind belongings to London, Adrian-an anxious, White nobleman on the cusp of joining Parliament-discovers one of his mother's most treasured possessions, an antique spyglass. She acquired it when she was the sole survivor of a shipwreck many years earlier. His mother always carried that spyglass with her, but on the day of her death, she had left it behind in her room. Although he never knew its full significance, Adrian is haunted by new questions and is certain the spyglass will lead him to the truth. Once again, Lee crafts an absorbing adventure with dangerous stakes, dynamic character growth, sharp social and political commentary, and a storm of emotion. Inseparable from his external search for answers about his mother, Adrian seeks a solution for himself, an end to his struggle with mental illness-a journey handled with hopeful, gentle honesty that validates the experiences of both good and bad days. Characters from the first two books play significant secondary roles, and the resolution ties up their loose ends. Humorous antics provide a well-measured balance with the heavier themes.An enticing, turbulent, and satisfying final voyage. (Historical fiction. 14-18)