A Pirate's Heart [Paperback]

For those readers who have read Catherine Friend's other lesbian fiction books, The Spanish Pearl and its sequel The Crown of Valencia, both published by Bold Stroke Books, it's been a long wait for this latest release by Ms. Friend. The wait was worth it.

This book has 2 stories that unfold with 300 years between them. This is a story with maps, treasure, mysterious islands, villains and the wide expanse of the sea, in both the past and the present.

In 1715 Captain Thomasina (Tommy) Farris is the pirate captain of the ship Moon Shadow. She leads a total of 300 men in 3 ships as they stalk the Caribbean for riches that can be had from the other ships that sail the waters. In the course of taking a ship Tommy encounters Avery Shaw, her nemisis, whose ships get there first. Throwing slaves overboard he takes the ship and leaves the slaves to drown. Tommy rescues the slaves and in so doing encounters Rebekah Brown, a strong-willed woman who confuses and flusters Tommy.

In the present day, librarian Emma Boyd searches for the treasure map that belonged to Capt. Tommy Farris. Someone is stealing maps from rare books and Emma is helped by Randi Marx, a private investigator hired by her library, to track down the map. Finding the treasure map will foil the thief's plan and will hopefully keep more maps from being stolen.

Catherine Friend successfully weaves the 2 stories together and yet keep the voices in the 2 stories distinct and separate. There are twists and turns throughout both stories. How she is able to keep them so clearly distinct and yet integrated is a skill that not many authors possess. In addition she drops in some names of other pirates, one of whom is found in another BSB book, which I found quite clever indeed. I wanted to search the internet for these other woman pirates even though this is fiction.

Throughout the book I was cheering both pairs of women, Tommy and Rebekah in 1715, and Emma and Randi in present day. Emma has to search her heart for the truth she feels. Tommy must do the same. Pirates in 1715 have much in common with pirates in current times. The reader discovers just how much that's true.

This is a romance, an adventure, and a romp. It's tightly written and the author successfully leads the reader on a scavenger hunt. A word of caution; make sure that you set aside some time when you read this book. You won't want to put it down. Bravo Catherine Friend!

The other reviews are pretty detailed so I won't waste my time with the small stuff.
This book has it all. I love it when an author can pull off two story lines as well as Ms. Friend has. It was adventurous, romantic, suspenseful and exciting. Once again she did a good job of making it seem real. Pirates being pirates and such.
I couldn't put this one down. I read it in one afternoon on the beach in Maui. Great place to read a book like that. Only bummer was that read the dang thing so fast that I ran out of books while there. I had to read magazines and real stuff. Yuck.
I actually gave this one to my wife as soon as I was finished with it. She is really picky and doesn't read too many of my lesbian fiction books. I've learned not to pass them on unless I think they are really good. No worries she loved this book and agreed that it was her best yet.
Buy this book and start enjoying.

I'm just going to admit right up front that pirate stories are one of my guilty pleasures. I say guilty pleasure because let's face it, what makes pirate stories fun isn't an author being a stickler for ultra-correct depictions, but instead building on the mythological framework that has developed around pirates. I love finding novels about female pirates. Lesbian pirates? I'm there! Well that's not just reserved for books, I love me them lady pirate movies too. I don't care how much it was panned, Cutthroat Island is a fun-filled romp!

But, just because the above is true it doesn't mean that I'll freely and frivolously hand out a lot of stars just because a book has lesbian pirates in it. Which means that in my opinion, A Pirate's Heart earned every star. I've read both of Catherine Friend's other books too and they were enjoyable, but I strongly believe that this one is superior. It made for fantastic vacation reading as I was lounging on a couch in my hotel room in front of a cheerily burning gas fireplace last week.

Normally I don't like books that have two separate stories going on that may only be tangentially, or long later in the book, related to each other. It can be distracting and annoying, probably because it's so difficult to do well. And also because much of the time as a reader I may only really be interested in one of the stories. In this case I thoroughly enjoyed both of the stories and I thought Friend did a fabulous job of weaving them together without losing or mucking up the threads. As Friend said in the Acknowledgements, a really good pirate story has a lovely wench, and what's better than one wench but four? I couldn't agree more!

Each story has its own tone. The pirate story is more serious, with more serious characters. The modern day story has a much more light-hearted feel to it and Emma expresses a lot of humor in her thoughts and how she says things. I think the differences in tone help set the stories apart and they end up nicely balancing each other.

While the pirate part of the book did use some of the pirate fantasy trappings we pirate fans enjoy so much - such maps to buried treasure, Friend did an excellent job of including a lot of detail based on historical fact. It's pretty easy to just throw caution to the wind and say well it's a pirate fantasy romance, we can just make up what we want! But it was obvious that Friend did at least some research into locations, life at sea, how pirates operated, mores of the time, the acts of pirates freeing slaves, and so on. The slave issue made a nice and natural lead-in to a bi-racial relationship.

The modern day story was an interesting look into rare book libraries with some very fun plot twists and mysterious tidbits left for the reader as bait along the way. All strung out on a mini-road trip type of adventure. Though there is also a fantastical plot point included which requires one to suspend their disbelief. But since we're already talking about buried pirate treasure I didn't find that requirement to cause too much strain.

So if you like pirates and mysteries, if you like a very interesting mix of characters, if you think four women are more fun than two, if you like historical fiction and adventure fiction, and if you enjoy a book that's a pleasure to read from start to finish, give this one a try.

Kindle owner note: an ebook edition can be purchased directly from the publisher.

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 12 reviews  4.6 out of 5 stars