Live the life of a pirate during the golden age of piracy!
Eric Hoffer Book Award Category Finalist 2023
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Eric Hoffer Book Award Category Finalist 2023 ~
Frey's writing is easy to read and approachable for upper middle-grade students through adults. The young protagonist will help with the appeal to a younger audience, but the historical details will likely draw in the more mature reader. The history is prominent, and ... those readers who are looking for detailed historical fiction rather than simply an adventure story with historical frosting are going to find exactly what they want in Frey's well-presented book.
- US Review of Books
It’s 1715 and Spain rules the Caribbean. Young Abigail Margaret Mary Pennyworth isn’t happy leaving her friends in England for the New World, but she has no say in where her missionary family goes as the Pennyworths set off for America.
Not long before the end of their three-month voyage, their merchant ship is captured by Spanish pirates, and Abby is separated from her family and all she has known. But before she can adjust, the Spanish vessel is captured in turn—by the notorious English pirate Benjamin Hornigold, the leader of the Pirate Republic in Nassau.
Hornigold renames the Spanish vessel Mary and decides that, rather than serving Abby to the sharks, he’ll have her serve as a member of his crew. And so starts her new life as the Captain’s cabin boy.
Abby’s adventures begin as they seize Spanish vessels in the Caribbean and sail in consort with many of the famous pirates of the day: Blackbeard (Edward Thache), Black Sam Bellamy and his partner, Paulsgrave Williams, Major Stede Bonnet, and Olivier LeVasseur. In Nassau, she meets Woodes Rogers, the new governor of the Bahamas, and Hornigold’s Jacobite-sympathizing nemeses, Henry Jennings and Charles Vane.
Join Abby as she lives the life of a pirate after the Queen Anne’s War. And yes Abby, they do hang pirates—even if they’re girls.
Coming Soon: The Jacobites and the Pirate Republic
Captain Hornigold and the Pirate Republic follows Benjamin Hornigold from the time he leaves Port Royal, Jamaica, after the Queen Anne’s War (1713) until he becomes a pirate hunter for Woodes Rogers, the new governor of the Bahamas (1718). Hornigold was the leader of the non-Jacobite pirates in the West Indies.
The Jacobite pirates, Henry Jennings, Charles Vane, Edward England, Calico Jack Rackman, Mary Read and Anne Bonney, present a different picture of pirate life and they will be the subjects of my next book.
The Jennings family were early settlers in Bermuda and Henry Jennings owned property in both Bermuda and Jamaica. He spent his time in Kingston and Port Royal and rarely sailed. His first notable target was the Spanish storehouse at San Sebastian Inlet on the Florida coast where salvage from the wreck of the Spanish plate fleet was waiting to be shipped back to Havana. His second target was one of unplanned opportunity. He and his fleet were on their way back to the wreck site when they came upon a French merchant frigate in Bahia Honda on the Cuban coast. There they captured the St. Marie of Rochelle. They were told of another French vessel trading twenty miles away at Port Mariel. They discovered that Captain Hornigold had already seized that vessel, the Marianne of St. Dominique. Jennings followed Hornigold and the Marianne back to Nassau and under his letter of marque issued by the governor of Jamaica, claimed the Marianne.
Charles Vane, who sailed with Jennings, assumed the leadership of the Jacobite pirates after Jennings sailed for Bermuda to accept King George’s pardon. Unlike Jennings, Vane was violent and abused his captives. It was not long before Vane’s crew mutinied and marooned him on an uncharted island.
England and Rackman assume the leadership role of Vane’s vessels and crew. Rackman was known for his clothes – “Callico Jack” he was called – and for his romance with Anne Bonney. Despite the Pirate Code, Anne joined her lover and she was joined aboard with her friend Mary Read. Women were not permitted aboard pirate vessels but if you were disguised as men and fought like men, who knew the difference.
Their stories extend beyond King George’s pardon and into the War of the Quadruple Alliance (1719), a war between Spain on one side and Great Britain, France, Austria, Savoy, and the Dutch Republic on the other.
As a backdrop, Woodes Rogers and King George were attempting to rid the West Indies of pirates.
As I investigate the lives of these pirates, I will be posting articles on this website.