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1726, 1930s: In Boston, the Golden Age of Piracy is coming to a bloody close…
1726, 1930s: In Boston, the Golden Age of Piracy is coming to a bloody close…
In Boston, as the Golden Age of Piracy comes to a bloody close, Hannah Masury – bound into service at a waterfront inn since childhood – is ready to take her life into her own hands. When William Fly is hanged for piracy in the town square, the teenage Hannah is watching. Forced to flee for her life, Hannah disguises herself as a cabin boy and joins the pitiless crew of another notorious real-life pirate, Edward “Ned” Low. To earn her freedom and finally change the tide of her own future, Hannah must hunt down William Fly’s lost treasure.
Meanwhile in 1930, Professor Marian Beresford pieces this bewitching story together, seeing her own lack of freedom reflected back at her as she watches Hannah’s transformation. At the centre of Hannah Masury’s account, however, lies a centuries-old mystery that Marian is determined to solve. It soon becomes clear that Hannah was once just as determined to take this secret to her grave.
Boston, Marblehead, Salem, Beverly
The author mentions each of the above locations in the novel and in her author note where she explains her love of pirates and why she chose to write the story. She researched where she lives in New England and the novel covers these places and the history of the pirates in and around that area.
“Pirates enthralled up even during the age of sail, when a shadowy author ostensibly named Captain Charles Johnson first published A General History of the Pyrates in 1724, the massive tome that gives us many of the most notorious real-life pirate stories of the 1600s and 1700s. “
Destination: Boston, Marblehead, Salem, Beverly Author/guide: Katherine Howe Departure Time: 1726, 1930s
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