The Cloud Leopard’s Daughter is the third in Challinor’s Kitty / Smuggler’s Wife series, and as well as pushing the story along she packs it full of backstory for those new to the characters, or maybe to remind her readers who have read the series of what has gone before.  It also includes the excellent characters from her Convict Girls series in one of the stops in Sydney.  A preface has Amber and her two adoring mates from the vessel Katipo, Tahi and Israel, going ashore in Sydney to briefly re-unite with Amber’s best friend Bao, who is staying with her uncle.  The story then starts a few years further on, the vessel is now Katipo III and Amber, Tahi and Israel are now in their twenties and the boys’ adoration of Amber is obviously going to cause trouble.  Amber’s father Rian captains the vessel and Kitty, her mother, sails beside him.  Rian takes them to Dunedin when he gets word that Bao has been kidnapped, and they go to visit Bao’s ailing father, their old friend Wong Fu, to find out how they can help.  From there it is a rollicking adventure in stinky Dunedin, stinky Sydney and stinky Hong Kong.  They find out surprising things about their old friend and his daughter and are drawn into the complicated web of Chinese politics, loyalties and deceptions.  And there are pirates!  As in all of Challinor’s books the history is interesting, the women strong and the action non-stop.  Kitty, Amber and Bao are all great, and occasionally I wasn’t sure why Kitty just didn’t hurf Rian overboard when he kept pulling the big strong male act.  Another strong installment in the series, and an ending that promises more.