Knife's Edge by Hope Larson and art by Rebecca Mock

Summary from Goodreads:

At the end of Compass South, twins Cleo and Alex were been reunited with their father, Mr. Dodge, on the ship Anita after a battle with the pirate Worley. Now, Cleo explains to Dodge and Alex that the pocket knife and pocket watch they have are keys to a treasure. So begins Knife's Edge, the second installment in Hope Larson's Four Points series—another high-speed story of treasure, family, and of course adventure on the high seas.

Review:

So, I read this book even faster than I read the first one. Thank goodness, I had both books and didn’t have to wait for the sequel to come out because that would have been a hard wait. I read this in one sitting. I liked it even more than I liked book 1.

For starters, this read a bit more like a family book than the first one did. The first one had a separated family. This one starts with the family back together again. And I loved this! I missed the other set of twins, though, I have to admit, things weren’t quite as confusing without them. I wasn’t as confused by which twin I was reading, as I was before. Granted, they were together a lot.

I also like that there are no evil captains or kidnappers –for the most part the twins are on a ship with a good captain. They are reunited with another long lost family member. And basically, this book is more about finding the treasure than it is about surviving all the predators out there. There still are predators: bad pirates are still on their trail and there are sharks too, but it never feels quite as bleak as the first book did.

What is different is how the characters handle and address Cleopatra. She is known to be a girl now. And she has to manage a family that’s not used to her being so wild and free. She has to fight for the right to be taught to use a sword. It’s interesting to watch her and her twin bicker about protection and what not. She rightly knows she can protect herself. He wasn’t with her on her past adventures and it’s fun watching them re-acquaint themselves with their newer versions. I also like that they forgive another character that was unkind to them in the first book, and he becomes one of their family/crew pretty quickly.

I like that this one deals with native peoples and storytelling. I loved watching the artist handle the storytelling –she made the stories float above the characters. Visually, this was pretty awesome. I also enjoyed getting the evil pirate’s story. His background was so interesting. All the gaps were filled in about the twins’ background also. There was still lots of sword fighting, sailing, pirates, battles, and treasure. The adventures were just as fun, if not more so.

All in all, this was a great sequel. It reads super fast. I loved the added family dynamics. I love the emphasis on stories and forgiveness. I loved learning about the twins’ history. The artwork was beautiful. I loved this. I give it a 9/10.