Pirates!

Okay I have to admit, I was at my local library with Tina, and she was on one side of the stacks and just pushed this book through. I looked at her and laughed because of the title. Pirates! bye Celia Rees was shockingly good for a book I has reservations about.

Nancy Kington is a daughter of a wealthy merchant. She grew up with two older brothers and no mother so she is more of a 'boy' in those times, wanting to swordplay and play with her best friend William, the son of a tavern mother and a sailor father. When she's fifteen, her brother who likes to gamble and drink, gambles the money away that was going to make the sugar ships come to port safetly. With these ships went their fortune. And with the fortune went their father. Shipped off to her family's plantation in Jamaica, she befriends the slaves and is shockingly naive about everything in her life at that point. Not long after she arrives, events shift so she joins the renegades and pirates. Her life of piracy wasn't what she expected it to be and not long she meets with her William again (for they are betrothed) but circumstances keep them apart. Her former slave, Minerva goes with her on this unintentinal adventure, and they are bonded in ways they never knew they could be.

This book is fast-paced once Nancy gets to Jamaica and before that you can really see how she has changed in the few years it spans. My one and only annoyance with the book is Rees made quite a few obvious foreshadowings, but they didn't hinder the story in anyway. It's mainly by the point-of-view of a fifteen turned sixteen girl but I think any age will like to know of Nancy Kington's story.

So just like I did, Check It Out

-Chrissy