AustLit

'The way out is through.

'Anne Bonny is chained up in the hold of a prison ship, nursing nine-month-old Molly. The baby is all she has left of Calico Jack, the swaggering pirate captain who loved her and stole her away to sea—and who now hangs from a gibbet. When armed men rip the child from her grasp, Bonny can do nothing and Molly seems lost. But Anne Bonny was not cut out for despair. She will plan for escape and rescue, and the plan will become action. And the streets of London will belong to her and her daughter—and the ragtag remnants of Calico Jack’s crew.

'Anne Bonny looms large in the history of piracy on the high seas. But history, having left the notorious female buccaneer languishing in Newgate Gaol, then carelessly mislaid her. Fortunately we have Meg Caddy to imagine her subsequent exploits and whereabouts, and to bring them so vividly and rakishly to life.' (Publication summary)

'Anne Bonny was eighteen when she ran away from her violent husband, James, into the arms of pirate captain Calico Jack Rackham. Now she’s ensconced aboard Jack’s ship Ranger, passing as a cabin boy and playing her ruthless part in a crew that is raining down mayhem and murder on the ships of the Caribbean. But James Bonny is willing to pay to get his ‘property’ back. And pirate-hunter Captain Barnet is happy to take his money. The Ranger’s a fast ship: Anne might just be able to outrun Barnet. But can she outrun the consequences of her relationship with Calico Jack?

'I don’t love meeting new people. I over-analyse what to wear beforehand, what to say, how to act. I dither at dinner parties, trying to work out where I should sit or whether my table manners are up to scratch. My mum and I regularly bicker about how many chairs I need in my flat—my argument is that if I don’t have many chairs no one will expect me to host anything and that is ideal.' (Introduction)

'As night fell, something stirred in the darkness. Birds shrieked, rising into the air as the peace cracked and fell apart. Flashes of crimson uniform cut through the smothering black of the woods. The smell of smoke lifted through the boughs and choked the leaves. A drum beat out a steady pulse as soldiers tore over the dead leaf matter, hacking their way through the web of forest. The prisoner ran. When Lowell Sencha finds the strange girl lying as if dead on the riverbank, he is startled to find that she is like them: waer. Human, but able to assume the form of a wolf. The Sencha family’s small community has kept itself sequestered and unnoticed, free from persecution. The arrival of a fellow traveller, and a hunted one at that, threatens their very survival. Sure enough, the soldiers of the blood-purist Daeman Leldh soon descend on the village searching for her, burning and slaughtering. Lowell and the mysterious stranger are among the few to escape. And now they must find their way to the city of Luthan where, she says, they will find people to help them bring down Daeman Leldh. If she can persuade them not to kill her.' (Publication summary)