The Surgeon's Mate (1980)

Another cracking Aubrey-Maturin sea adventure ( )

Good God these books are incredible. ( )

O'Brian delivers with his typical excellence. Thumping storyline, evocative prose, rich characterisation and you feel like you're reading a combination of an exhilarating page-turner and a thoroughly reasearched naval history tome. ( )

Excellent ending! Both unexpected, despite the title, and wholly entertaining to the very last word. The shifting third person once in a while made me wonder whose head we had just been in, but never interfered with the story, and gave a nice glimpse into the mind of each main character.
Highly recommended. ( )

Book seven in Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin series features some complications in the personal lives of its characters on land and a delicate mission for them to carry out by sea.

I really enjoyed this one. Like many of them, it maybe gets a bit slow in the middle, but even during long passages about doing things with sails, I never stopped thinking happily about how much I like these characters. And the ending is fantastic, full of engaging and unexpected developments. I swear, there was one moment when I actually exclaimed out loud as I was reading. ( )