Pirates! by Celia Rees
The full title is Pirates! The true and remarkable adventures of Minerva Sharpe and Nancy Kington, Female Pirates.
“I stood with Minerva as our first fight came, pistols primed and slung about me, my cutlass honed and as sharp as a razor, my axe hanging heavy from my belt. I could not keep my legs from shaking…” Nancy Kington grew up in Bristol, England, the daughter of a wealthy merchant, owner of a sugar plantation in Jamaica. Life as she knows it completely changes when he dies.
She is shipped to the Caribbean to the plantation she has inherited. Here she witnesses cruelty and the inhumanity of slavery. Her father kept slaves taken from Africa and had been a slave trader. And she has been promised in marriage according to her father’s will to Bartholome, a black-hearted slave master. She is kept powerless to do anything about the horror she sees around her or to escape her fate.
Minerva Sharpe is a house slave at Fountainhead Plantation. Her lonely new mistress is kind to her and befriends her. Their bond and their fates are more closely tied than either of them know. Nancy’s arrival starts a series of events that take Minerva away from the only life she has ever known and into a fight for her life and freedom. For when one must murder the plantation overseer who attacks the other, the two girls must flee.
There’s nothing for it but to “go on the account,” that is, to join a crew of pirates and ship out. They do not know that they will “instill fear in the ordinary crew and passengers [of ships they attacked, that they will], board with reckless boldness, and if the prize offered resistance, it was kill or be killed." They do not know that Bartholme will follow them across the globe for vengeance.
“My knuckles were white from gripping the rail, but Minerva had a stillness about her, her features as calm and expressionless as if they had been carved from ironwood…It was not resignation, more a refusal to show any reaction to whatever fate was about to enfold her. I was green and sick with nervousness. She put her hand on mine to steady me, whispering through the cannon's roar. 'We will watch out for each other. We will not be afraid.'We leapt the gap between the ships together, ready to fight and die for each other.”
For info about pirates and more about this and other Celia Rees books, go to http://www.celiarees.co.uk/
“I stood with Minerva as our first fight came, pistols primed and slung about me, my cutlass honed and as sharp as a razor, my axe hanging heavy from my belt. I could not keep my legs from shaking…” Nancy Kington grew up in Bristol, England, the daughter of a wealthy merchant, owner of a sugar plantation in Jamaica. Life as she knows it completely changes when he dies.
She is shipped to the Caribbean to the plantation she has inherited. Here she witnesses cruelty and the inhumanity of slavery. Her father kept slaves taken from Africa and had been a slave trader. And she has been promised in marriage according to her father’s will to Bartholome, a black-hearted slave master. She is kept powerless to do anything about the horror she sees around her or to escape her fate.
Minerva Sharpe is a house slave at Fountainhead Plantation. Her lonely new mistress is kind to her and befriends her. Their bond and their fates are more closely tied than either of them know. Nancy’s arrival starts a series of events that take Minerva away from the only life she has ever known and into a fight for her life and freedom. For when one must murder the plantation overseer who attacks the other, the two girls must flee.
There’s nothing for it but to “go on the account,” that is, to join a crew of pirates and ship out. They do not know that they will “instill fear in the ordinary crew and passengers [of ships they attacked, that they will], board with reckless boldness, and if the prize offered resistance, it was kill or be killed." They do not know that Bartholme will follow them across the globe for vengeance.
“My knuckles were white from gripping the rail, but Minerva had a stillness about her, her features as calm and expressionless as if they had been carved from ironwood…It was not resignation, more a refusal to show any reaction to whatever fate was about to enfold her. I was green and sick with nervousness. She put her hand on mine to steady me, whispering through the cannon's roar. 'We will watch out for each other. We will not be afraid.'We leapt the gap between the ships together, ready to fight and die for each other.”
For info about pirates and more about this and other Celia Rees books, go to http://www.celiarees.co.uk/
posted by Nancy Cowal, Library Media Specialist | 10:01 AM
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