Overview
It is the dawn of the eighteenth century, when girls stay home and sew while men sail the high seas finding adventure, danger, and gold. But two unusually adventurous girls--a rich merchant's daughter, Nancy Kington, and her former plantation slave, Minerva Sharpe--take to the high seas from Jamaica on a shop the crew renames Deliverance. Not just any trading ship, the Deliverance flies black flags from its mast, proclaiming to all that the newly named, hijacked ship is a pirate vessel, striking fear into the hearts of those she approaches. Or so they hope.
For Nancy, the Deliverance is her escape from an arranged betrothal to a controlling and devilish man. For Minerva, it is an escape from slavery, as well as from the fearsome overseer on Nancy's family plantation. But in the end, the money, the adventure, the companionship, and the chance to see the world not as women, but as bold and daring pirates, is an opportunity neither can deny.
A powerful, thrilling, and ultimately inspiring journey of two women who break the bonds of gender, race, and position to find their own way to glory.
In 1722, after arriving with her brother at the family's Jamaican plantation where she is to be married off, sixteen-year-old Nancy Kington escapes with her slave friend, Minerva Sharpe, and together they become pirates traveling the world in search of treasure.
Synopsis
It is the dawn of the eighteenth century, when girls stay home and sew while men sail the high seas finding adventure, danger, and gold. But two unusually adventurous girls--a rich merchant's daughter, Nancy Kington, and her former plantation slave, Minerva Sharpe--take to the high seas from Jamaica on a shop the crew renames Deliverance. Not just any trading ship, the Deliverance flies black flags from its mast, proclaiming to all that the newly named, hijacked ship is a pirate vessel, striking fear into the hearts of those she approaches. Or so they hope.
For Nancy, the Deliverance is her escape from an arranged betrothal to a controlling and devilish man. For Minerva, it is an escape from slavery, as well as from the fearsome overseer on Nancy's family plantation. But in the end, the money, the adventure, the companionship, and the chance to see the world not as women, but as bold and daring pirates, is an opportunity neither can deny.
A powerful, thrilling, and ultimately inspiring journey of two women who break the bonds of gender, race, and position to find their own way to glory.
Publishers Weekly
Fans of Rees's earlier Witch Child will relish this highly romantic cross-dressing romp on the high seas in the early 18th century. Readers new to the author may be drawn in by the book's good looks: handsome cover art and appropriately swashbuckling endpapers. After her family's fortunes founder, and her merchant (and slave trader) father dies, narrator Nancy is sent from her Bristol home to the Jamaica plantation she is slated to inherit. There the 16-year-old learns she has been promised in marriage to the Brazilian Bartholome, a sadistic man rumored to be "the Devil himself." Nancy runs away with Minerva, the slave girl to whom she has grown close, and they wind up on the pirate ship captained by the gentlemanly officer who befriended Nancy on her way to Jamaica. Clad in men's clothes, the two girls adapt quickly to their new life, but Nancy's prophetic nightmares indicate that the Brazilian still hunts for his vanished bride, captaining a "dark ship, sailing under a black hoist with no device upon it." So fast and furious are the pirates' adventures, so enthralling are the girls' passions (Nancy has promised herself to her childhood sweetheart, while Minerva falls hard for Vincent Crosby, "a handsome young mulatto of about five and twenty with skin the colour of dark honey"), that it's easy to ignore the one-dimensionality of the novel's characters (villains are almost always denoted by a lack of personal hygiene). A playful yet intriguing glimpse of 18th-century life as it was lived by those who were not-or chose not to be-gentlefolk. Ages 12-up. (Oct.) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
Editorials
Publishers Weekly
Fans of Rees's earlier Witch Child will relish this highly romantic cross-dressing romp on the high seas in the early 18th century. Readers new to the author may be drawn in by the book's good looks: handsome cover art and appropriately swashbuckling endpapers. After her family's fortunes founder, and her merchant (and slave trader) father dies, narrator Nancy is sent from her Bristol home to the Jamaica plantation she is slated to inherit. There the 16-year-old learns she has been promised in marriage to the Brazilian Bartholome, a sadistic man rumored to be "the Devil himself." Nancy runs away with Minerva, the slave girl to whom she has grown close, and they wind up on the pirate ship captained by the gentlemanly officer who befriended Nancy on her way to Jamaica. Clad in men's clothes, the two girls adapt quickly to their new life, but Nancy's prophetic nightmares indicate that the Brazilian still hunts for his vanished bride, captaining a "dark ship, sailing under a black hoist with no device upon it." So fast and furious are the pirates' adventures, so enthralling are the girls' passions (Nancy has promised herself to her childhood sweetheart, while Minerva falls hard for Vincent Crosby, "a handsome young mulatto of about five and twenty with skin the colour of dark honey"), that it's easy to ignore the one-dimensionality of the novel's characters (villains are almost always denoted by a lack of personal hygiene). A playful yet intriguing glimpse of 18th-century life as it was lived by those who were not-or chose not to be-gentlefolk. Ages 12-up. (Oct.) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.Children's Literature
Nancy Kington is the daughter of a Bristol shipping businessman, a merchant and a man of means. He owns a plantation in Jamaica, a 'factory' for the processing of sugar cane, and a fleet of ships. He buys and sells all sorts of goods from different parts of the world and for many years Nancy has a free and reasonably happy life. Nancy's father also buys and sells humans, slaves from Africa, but this is something his daughter never thought much about until her father dies suddenly. With his death comes financial ruin and great change in Nancy's life. She is sent to Jamaica, to the plantation which is now hers, and suddenly the question of slavery becomes a very real one to this fair-skinned girl from Bristol. Nancy's father not only left the plantation to Nancy, he also left her with a terrible future. Before he died, he promised her in marriage to a frightening and cruel man called Bartholome, a Brazilian plantation owner who lives in Jamaica and who has a shadowy and dark past. One dreadful night Nancy finds herself caught up series of desperate and violent events. Nancy and a slave girl called Minerva decide to flee to the hills; one from a marriage she cannot imagine herself in, and the other from certain death. What follows is the journey that these two girls make, always fleeing from the terrifying Bartholome who seeks them out. They soon find themselves on a pirate ship, "on account," in other words, they become part of the ship's company. Soon Minerva and Nancy are pirates in every way, fighting and eating alongside the men, sharing in the labor and in the winnings. Minerva fits in well with the life at sea, but Nancy feels always that there is something else that she needs to makeher happy. Written with extraordinary insight into the human heart and a through understanding of the times, this book is hard to put down. Fast paced, exciting, and full of unexpected twists and turns in the plot, we are carried forward, hoping that Nancy will find what she is looking for and that she will not have to give up on her dreams. Often brutal, cruel, and harsh, hers was a world where it was easy to get lost in the fight for survival. The author does not gloss over the reality of this world and the facts can often be both shocking and very moving. The misery that slavery caused to hundreds of people cannot be forgotten. 2003, Bloomsbury, Ages 15 up.— Marya Jansen-Gruber
KLIATT
The author of Witch Child and its sequel Sorceress is a gifted writer of historical fiction for YAs; she is especially good at creating strong, intelligent female characters who escape from the worst woes of their times. This lengthy story begins in Bristol, England, in 1722. Nancy, the daughter of a wealthy plantation owner and trader, is the narrator. When Nancy's father dies, her brothers ship her off to their estates in Jamaica, where she awaits marriage with a wealthy Brazilian. In Jamaica she is horrified by the slavery she sees and befriends two house slaves, Phyllis and her daughter Minerva. It is Minerva who will become an equally important character in this tale; we soon guess Minerva is Nancy's half-sister, and the two are inseparable friends. Nancy meets her intended husband and hates him; Minerva is nearly raped by the brutal overseer; so the two, with Minerva's mother, flee to a settlement of runaway slaves in the highlands of the island. Nancy's presence endangers these hospitable folks because the Brazilian is hunting Nancy down, so she and Minerva choose the only way out; they join a pirate ship and become pirates. Yes, we are talking about guns and swords, knives, jewels, high seas and dangerous people. Nancy and Minerva actually become dangerous people: good fighters, clever in deception. Rees makes this world of pirates absolutely real; and perhaps readers will be seeing the Pirates of the Caribbean movie with Johnny Depp this summer to help them visualize this adventure. Added to the day-by-day dangers in the life of pirates are two main plotlines; Nancy is in love with a young man from Bristol who is in the British Navy hunting down pirates (yes, he captures her;punishment is hanging); and that evil man from Brazil just won't let Nancy go (his ship is also hunting her with determination). Amid the appealing adventures are serious considerations of the plight of slaves and women. Rees is a good researcher who gets the historical details right. KLIATT Codes: JS*; Exceptional book, recommended for junior and senior high school students. 2003, Bloomsbury, 321p.,— Claire Rosser