Pirates & Privateers: Rachel Rueckert's Books

The girl just dove off the pier right before his eyes. She doesn’t sink right away; she ventures farther afield until her strength gives out. That’s when he jumps in and rescues her.

Maria Brown (also known as Goody or Mehitable) just wants to learn to swim. She’s been teaching herself, but those lessons can only go so far. Swimming allows a sense a freedom, something which is nearing an end. At seventeen, she should be married, but she’s learned that resisting is futile. Sooner or later, she will have to marry John Hallett and her life will no longer be her own.

Samuel Bellamy should be looking for a job now that the war has ended and the Royal Navy has released him from service. But jobs on Cape Cod are few and there’s something about the beautiful girl he saves that speaks to him. It’s as if they are kindred souls. To see her again, he offers to give her swimming lessons.

Despite the risk to her reputation, Maria takes him up on his offer. The time they spend together is precious, and Sam’s unique way of looking at life stirs long-buried ideas within her. Still, the clock ticks closer to the inevitable period when their paths will diverge. She already knows her future, or at least she thinks she does. For Sam, he’s offered a chance to acquire riches enough to convince Maria’s father that he deserves to wed Maria instead of the prosperous and influential Hallett. Waiting in the wings, however, is Maria’s mother. She’s determined that her daughter will follow a straight and righteous path, one where Maria will not have to endure what she has. Before long, choices are made – ones that cannot be undone – and their paths are forever altered in ways neither expects.

Rueckert masterfully whisks together historical facts with legend and lore to create a spellbinding and realistic tale that breathes new life into Maria Hallett and Sam Bellamy. Along the way, we experience the cruelties and hardships of social life on Cape Cod, as well as the desperateness that drives people toward alternatives they might never have pursued otherwise. If the Tide Turns takes place between 1715 and 1717, and readers meet real life pirates such as Paulsgrave Williams, Henry Jennings, Benjamin Hornigold, Edward Teach, John Julian, and John King (the youngest known pirate). Time and again, the story transports readers with its you-are-there sensation. Even if you know the story of Sam and Maria, Rueckert will make you think again. Unexpected twists and harsh realities are deftly entwined with hope and aspirations to create a story of enduring love.

Meet the author

The Determined
by Rachel Rueckert
Kensington, February 2026, ISBN 978-1-4967-4756-3, US $9.99
Available in various formats

In February 1721, Anne Bonny sits in a gaol in Spanish Town on the isle of Jamaica. She awaits the birth of her child, as well as the hangman’s noose, for her pregnancy is all that stays her execution. Since her capture, the days have passed in monotony, without companionship and without anything to mark one day from another. On this particular day, that changes – a gentleman wearing a tricorn with an ostrich feather comes to visit. He wishes to write her story to add to his forthcoming collection that he hopes will be a bestseller. His name is Captain Charles Johnson. Anne is reticent to share her story – what business is it to others – but she asks for two boons. One is paper and ink to write letters. The second is for word of Mary and a doctor to tend to her ailing friend.

Interwoven through the chapters set in 1721 are the stories of the two most notorious female pirates of the golden age of piracy. Anne’s begins in 1705 in Kinsale, Ireland, where she is the illegitimate daughter of a lawyer from a well-to-do family and a servant woman. Social mores and debts drive them from Ireland and eventually, they land in Charlestown, South Carolina. From there, Anne explains the circumstances of how she meets James Bonny and the unfortunate circumstances that surround her arrival in New Providence and her run-in with Calico Jack Rackham.

Mary, too, is pregnant, but her health is tenuous and the odds are about even as to whether the fever or the hangman will claim her. Her tale begins a decade before Anne’s in London, England, where Mary is known as Mark Read and she has no idea that she is a girl. The ruse is staged by her mother to keep them both alive, but the day soon comes when Mary learns the truth. Life isn’t fair to women, and for them to continue to survive, Mom must separate from her and Mark must continue to make “his” way, this time as an apprentice to a ship’s captain who once was acquainted with her father. World events eventually disrupt their lives, and if Mark wishes to advance and gain enough money to search for “his” mother, he needs a new vocation. He joins the cavalry, where a Flemish officer makes Mark’s acquaintance. What follows is a love story that eventually allows Mark to become Mary once again, until tragedy forces her to make new choices that lead her to the Caribbean where she eventually crosses paths with Anne Bonny.

Using Johnson’s account of the lives of these notorious women, Rueckert has crafted a compelling and totally believable tale that fills in all the blanks left by Johnson. I have always been drawn more to Mary Read than Anne Bonny, and Rueckert’s depiction of the two women helped me understand why this is. Her words paint visual imagery that is dynamic and three-dimensional, and they depict two very different women whose friendship and living in a male-dominated world bring them together to live and survive. Her research is spot-on and seamlessly woven into the story in ways that make it impossible to separate fact from fiction, although Rueckert does elaborate on this in her afterword.

Over the years, I’ve reviewed numerous books about Anne Bonny and Mary Read, but only a few have touched my heart and stayed with me long after I finish reading. The Determined is one of those tales. It is as much a treasure as James L. Nelson’s The Only Life That Mattered and N. C. Schell’s The Ballade of Mary Reede.

Meet the author