“I love novels about pirates, and this is a good one. It not only has an interesting story, but it also is based on actual history about the pirates who operated in the Bahamas. Of special interest is information about the female pirates. They did exsist and came from varied backgrounds. I would definitely recommend this book.”

“Grabs you attention from the first chapter. You will lose track of time when reading this book well written and I found details just enough not to be boring.”

“I just finished this wonderful book! I liked the characters and found it to be a fresh outlook to learn about the life of the Pirates in contrast to the colonial plantation life. The author did a great job in describing the passion of the characters for each other and their love of the sea and pirate life.”

Pirates of The Bahamas is an historical romance and adventure set in the period following what is known as the golden age of piracy and preceding the American revolution. Pirates operating out of The Bahamas at this time were primarily interested in intercepting merchant cargo being shipped back and forth between America and the West Indies but would also take high value hostages to ransom them back to their families. 

The 1720 capture of the infamous pirates Calico Jack Rackham, Anne Bonny and Mary Read may well have marked the end of the age of piracy in the Caribbean.  Rackham was executed, his body hanged at the entrance to the harbor to Port Royal as a warning, while Bonny and Read were said to have had their executions stayed due to their pregnancies.  Friends then arranged for Mary Read and her newborn son to escape to Cuba while Anne Bonny’s wealthy father secured her release and took her back to South Carolina.  Historically, both pirate women faded into obscurity.

Mary Read was determined to raise her son, Jack, to continue the family tradition and as soon as he was old enough she and a group of former pirates established a base in the Bahamas.  With the British Navy at war with Spain, they would essentially be ignored and were free to plunder vessels on the active trade route between colonial America and Jamaica.  By 1748, Jack Read had risen to the task and was earning a reputation as a pirate captain and as the rightful heir to Calico Jack.

Anne Bonny was quickly married off and her daughter, Mary Burleigh, was raised as a lady on a rice plantation in the American colonies.

Mary Burleigh never knew that her mother, the straight-laced Carolina lady Anne Burleigh, had in her youth been the infamous pirate, Anne Bonny, and that her real father had actually been a pirate. All Mary knew was the privileged life she had led growing up on a plantation.

While on a sailing voyage to Jamaica Mary is abducted by the pirate captain Jack Read, the famous son of Calico Jack Rackham, but her initial horror soon turns to unimaginable bliss as during her time aboard she transitions from hostage-for-ransom to cabin girl, and then to lover. The depth of passion that she and Jack share exceeds all of her fantasies, and she dreams of an idyllic future living with him on his island paradise.

But when Mary wants to tell her frantic family that they no longer need to worry it results in her mother meeting up again with the pirate Mary Read, and she soon discovers the secret of her mother’s past. Worse, could Jack Rackham have been her father also, meaning that she and Jack might be half-siblings?  Mary Burleigh decides that she alone will bear the burden of their possibly incestuous relationship and frantically writes a letter to Jack telling him to forget her; that she was returning with her mother to Carolina.

Assuming that Mary left because he wasn’t able to provide her the life in which she was raised, Jack reasons that he has only one way to get her back; he must become rich and buy his way into Carolina society as a gentleman.  He turns from pirate to privateer with an eye on the treasures of the Spanish Main.  It’s a desperate move, but death at the hands of the Spanish would be infinitely preferable to a life devoid of Mary.

Back in Carolina a despondent Mary is unable to forget Jack and is emotionally incapable of resuming her old life. Her mother decides the only solution is to marry her off, so she sets about selecting a suitable husband for her.

Will Jack survive and succeed in establishing himself as a gentleman? Will the true identity of Mary Burleigh’s father be revealed?  Will it all happen in time, before her mother succeeds in arranging her marriage?