These women came from all walks of life but had one thing in common: a desire for freedom. History has largely ignored these female swashbucklers, until now. Here are their stories, from ancient Norse warriors like Awilda, Stikla, and Rusla; to Sayyida al-Hurra of the Barbary corsairs; from Grace O'Malley, who terrorized shipping operations around the British Isles during the reign of Queen Elizabeth; to Cheng I Sao, who commanded a fleet of ships off China in the early 19th century.
Author Laura Sook Duncombe also looks beyond the stories to the storytellers and mythmakers. What biases and agendas motivated them? What did they leave out? Pirate Women explores why and how these stories are told and passed down and how history changes depending on who is recording it. It's the largest overview of women pirates in one volume and chock-full of swashbuckling adventures. In this book, pirate women are pulled from the shadows into the spotlight that they deserve.
Jennifer Grey is shipwrecked on the island ruled by the pirate Chad LaSalle and tries to resist the pirate's attentions. Warm, tropical Jamaica—a hotbed of piracy, violence, and spiritual conflict. Emerald Harwick is caught amidst each. Her fiance, Captain Baret "Foxworth" Buckington, defies the laws of the Jamaican Council and sails with notorious arch pirate Henry Morgan, hoping to find his imprisoned father among the Spanish dons.
Her marriage delayed, Jamaican law forces Emerald to also put her heart's desire on hold: teaching Christianity to the African slaves. She fights disappointment and seeks an end to the spiritual conflict with her culture. Emerald is caught in a web of disillusionment, anger, and fear. As Spanish sympathizers gain the ear of the king, she must face a most frightening possibility: If caught, Baret will be arrested and hanged at Execution Dock.
Cate Whitfield harbors revenge in her heart for the bloodthirsty pirate who murdered her betrothed. So she's stunned to learn that he is to be her father's guest of honor at one of his revelries--and even more upset to discover that Captain Alexander Chase may not be the scoundrel she believes. Unfortunately for her, it appears that in fact it is inhabited by a large bunch of pirates who have built a town and use this as their home base. He comes across Jennifer and the minute he sees her, decides he will have her.
He doesn't know her from Adam, doesn't speak to her or ask her name, but simply attacks and rapes her. He then gets angry as she hadn't told him she was a virgin , although he concedes this would not have stopped him - but he might have gone easier - what a gent! He proceeds to drag her back to his village half naked and locks her in his bedroom. The h cries during the event but I have to say, does not seem overly put out thereafter, which given her background just seems totally incredible.
She escapes the room and runs away into the hills. The not so charming a hole is furious that she would disobey or humiliate him like this and goes after her the next day, where he threatens to set his men on her to rape her if she tries to escape again. Only on the way back to the village does he finally even enquire after her name.
She is afraid to tell him her true identity and gives a false name, but he has the ship's log and he realises who she is and that they had once between betrothed but now she is set to marry his half brother and he sees his opportunity for revenge on his family.
He goes up to the room and then violently rapes her again, whilst wondering what sort of game she is playing at and why she does not enjoy the honour he's doing her - I'm serious He then goes to treat J's battered feet with salve and we have an even more charming moment when she comments on the fact he is wearing an ear ring and we learn that he had captured a Spanish vessel 5 years previously and been taken with a young woman Dona Maria. He had killed her father in front of her and then taken her to his cabin to rape her but she had managed to stab him in self defence.
His crew disposed of her probably in a very unpleasant manner but he never bothered to find out how and he was presented with her ear ring as a trophy.
He proceeds to brag about this to Jennifer and is simply cavalier about rape. Jennifer's reaction to this latest incident is very facile. She cries and fights during the rape and this would generally mean the experience would have been painful and degrading.
However, as soon as it's over, she's asking him questions and admiring his chest. A fundamental rule of life should be that murderous raping socio paths are not attractive!!! I know that this is from the late 80s but it is pretty uncomfortable. In real terms the h has suffered multiple traumas within a 3 week period: her father dies, she has to leave her country to travel to England to marry a man she does not know, her ship is wreaked and everyone one on board is killed, she is washed up ashore after a long period in the sea, she struggles to survive for a week by herself with no companionship and little hope of imminent rescue, she then discovers that there are pirates on the island, she is raped by an unknown man on the beach within minutes of him spotting her, she is captured and paraded in a state of undress through a pirate village, she runs away hurting her feet and is captured again, he rapes her again pretty violently swearing to use her for revenge and then brags about raping other women and having them killed if they try to defend themselves or resist.
These are not the types of things that you just get over and most normal people would be in shock and distress. Instead she appears to take it in her stride as if well, it really isn't that serious, and I do not find this remotely credible.
Also it sends a pretty bad message re acceptable behaviour. The hero displays absolutely no remorse for his actions and it's really problematic that he is such a scum bag. So from page on: Chad sends a dress maker Megan, up to J but Megan informs her that she must pay for the clothes herself somehow.
Chad comes upstairs and proceeds to rip J's new dress off her, as it is too conservative and he doesn't like it. On her way home Megan is raped, murdered and mutilated. Chad is furious that this has happened on his island. He locks J in the room telling her Megan is dead and leaving her o believe that he has killed her. She then makes a further escape. She comes across the murderer but escapes and is eventually found Willard and is then recovered by the captain who locks her away in a prison cell for 3 days.
Think boiling heat, hardly any water, no company and rodents and you should get the picture Her imprisonment causes discontent within the village so Chad eventually let's her go but after her bath, he proceeds to threaten her further by warning her that if she steps out of line or encourages rebellion, one of the villagers will be imprisoned in her place.
He forces himself on her again but this time she comes to enjoy it and after he storms out she realises she loves him I repeat WTF! At the same time she concludes that as he is keeping her in the inn where the whores reside, that this must mean he intends to prostitute her but this doesn't change her conclusion that she must live him I want to cry and not in a good way She ends up serving at the inn along with the whores and causes an incident when other men try and have her and she is faced with further rape.
Chad gets rid of them and is furious with her actions. Just past the half way point and need a further break! She has an epiphany that he is unhappy because he has never been loved and deserves her sympathy. She plays the piano and he remembers the unhappy events that led to his step mother's death and his father's rejection of him. He breaks a glass in distress and she think she spots a look of agony and remorse in his eye.
Doesn't it just pull at your heart strings? At least he doesn't force himself on her that night. So the next day she kind of pines for him but tells the gentle Willard that she is duty bound to return to England and marry Charles. It literally does not seem to have occurred to her that Charles may not be entirely enthusiastic about this in light of the fact that his hated half brother has ruined her. She and Willard go swimming and she discovers Chad's treasure trove and potentially her way off the island.
On her way back she discovers that one of the whores Modesty has been murdered but the killer also dies and was a deck hand on J's ship. She tells chad that if she had known he was ashore, she would never have run from him, which even Chad feels is incongruous given his actions towards her to date. We are even told that he had thought to court her, not because it was something she would appreciate or want but so that he could break her spirit and dominate her.
At this stage he is starting to show some remorse or at least to question his actions. He gets drunk at the inn comes home late and gets angry at j. She fears he will strike her so she runs to her room and he gives chase. It all boils down to the fact he wants his daddy's love. I want to vomit. Aother pirate ship captained by garth Lathrop arrives. Early on in the book, Garth is in jail, when sleazoid half brother Charles visits and offers to pay him to kill Chad.
Lathrop tells chad of Charles plot. Why he does this is not clear as at this stage it is stated that Lathrop intends to go through with it. He then meets J by accident and forms a bargain with her to return her to London. J and chad have a further argument about his father and again fall into bed with each other. That night Garth's men attack the island. Garth shoots Chad thinking he's killed him but telling him in advance that J had paid him to get her off the island so that he thinks that she was involved.
J is devastated by events but goes with Garth to London, all the while blaming herself for event. In the interim Cpt Lanthrop starts to fall for her and hopes that she will reject Charles however he is unable to tell her that he would have killed Chad anyway because of the money Charles had promised him.
It is all very convoluted. Back on the island , surprise surprise, it emerges that Chad is not dead but seriously wounded. Lanthrops men work the villagers like slaves to build a new inn and every woman on the island is raped.
This causes some outrage with some of Chad's men in hiding and Chad also expresses a desire to have this stopped : given that up until now he and his men have no issue with rape, this just smacks of hypcpocrisy ie it's ok if we do it but not these other pirates. Meanwhile in London: j is brought to the Wadsworth house and her future father in law is delighted to have her safe.
Sleazoid Charles is not so enthusiatic and it emerges that he has also been trying to have her killed. He also plots to have his father killed so that he can marry a commoner called Fern. Charles and j argue and she swears she will never marry him - he's not too upset about this as he's still planning to kill her. Sir Charles the father is told that Chad is dead and let's J know that she will have the plantation in America even if she doesn't marry sleazoid.
Jennifer overhears part of Charles plot about killing his father, calls for help but Charles catches her and when interrupted byhis father, stabs him. She runs away and Charles tries to blame her for the attack. Jennifer makes it back to Captain Lanthrop who swears revenge on the sleazoid and takes her back to the island in the interim. He manages not to force himself on her and they become quasi friends.
She asks him to give the villagers their freedom and he agrees to give it a try. They have sex and he then drags her to the village where his men and the villagers have captured Lanthrop and his men and are about to kill them. At this stage Garth Lanthrop tells the truth about his motives.
He comes to j the next morning dressed as a gentleman and begs her forgiveness which she grants. Chad, Garth, J and their friends all then put together their dealings with Charles and Chad and Garth join forces to go after Charles.
At this stage things become very confused and muddled. They go to see Sir Alexander Reardon, while at the same time referring to him as a duke. I think the author may have had a fundamental misunderstanding the English nobility and title and parliamentary system - as a Sir is a knight and definately not a duke and likewise one man does not have the final say in parliament.
There is some plot to do with the French but this is never been made clear. It all comes to a head when it emerges that Charles was the child of neither of his parents and he had been responsible for the death of his 'mother '.
Garth shoots him and ends the agony. The king gives everyone a pardon, the h and h marry and return to their island in wedded bliss. The end. Thank God The funny thing about this book was that it was actually strangely readable. Clearly there was much wrong with the thing and as one of the other reviewers points out this is by no means a good book. The plot lines were incredibly convoluted and unnecessary. The main problem remains with the so called hero and his relationship with the heroine.
His actions in the first and more pages are so rotten that he just comes across as despicable; that fact that he's pining for his father's love is not a justification for his behaviour; he shows little remorse and certainly never acknowledges any such feeling to the heroine and in light of that it is simply impossible for the reader to understand how she can have fallen for him.
His actions in the last half of the book are not that bad but he does not come across as redeemed. Quite frankly I hated him from the start and by the end I still really didn't care for him and its hard to like a romance when the central relationship just rings hollow.
View 1 comment. May 13, Heather Brooks rated it really liked it. I regret nothing. I read this back in high school and thoroughly enjoyed it. Aug 01, Joy rated it did not like it. Only since goodreads have I realised quite seriously the crap I've read in my life. I don't even like the reminders but this has got to rate as one of the worst. Another one that I read a very long time ago but like the best I've read I can remember the worst too and this one sure fits in the latter category.
Where can I rape her? How often can I rape her? Whenever I damn well please thank you very much! Worse, it stretched absolute credulity when she fell in Only since goodreads have I realised quite seriously the crap I've read in my life.
Shannon rated it it was ok Feb 06, Sabrina L. Beasley rated it it was amazing Apr 18, Madeleine Harris rated it it was amazing Apr 05, Anne rated it it was ok Jan 04, Traci rated it liked it Mar 20, Mandy rated it it was ok Jul 08, Brenda Haven rated it liked it Oct 30, Colleen A.
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