Jacey Bedford's Journal

The Hundred Isles have built their ships from the bones of ancient dragons to fight an endless war with their neighbours, but the dragons are gone now, and the bones are no longer plentiful. Now a Keyshan (dragon) has been spotted. Whichever nation captures it and kills it for its bones will gain supremacy.

Joron Twiner has been condemned to the Tide Child, one of the Black Ships (ships of the soon-to-be dead) for a crime undisclosed (at first). He comes from a fisher family, not 'fleet' but he's sea savvy, though inexperienced when it comes to command. He's floundering and lost… and then Lucky Meas appears. She wrests command from him, but surprisingly gives him a position and he begins to learn. Under Meas command, the crew of Tide Child begin to make a cohesive unit. They have a job to do.

 The world building is superb. The ships made of dragon bone and glue with slate decks (and always referred to as 'he') are suitably (chillingly) weird and the flora and fauna follow logical patterns. The captains of the ships (fleet and black-ships) are 'shipwives' and the crew are 'deck childer'. But for all the (logical) strangeness, the human conflict is gripping.