Customer Reviews

Changing Tide

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Charity and Daryl Conyngton make an appearance at the beginning and end, but this is really seafaring Tom Pennan's story.

Seventeen year old Roxanne smuggles her fiance Rowland onto Tom's ship. Rowland is a Royalist who needs to escape from Puritan authorities. Her guardian has forbidden her to marry him, but she is determined to do so any way.

Tom, of course, is in on the secret, but the more he sees of Rowland, the less he thinks Roxanne should marry him. To be fair, Rowland isn't much of a catch; if she marries him Roxanne will probably have a hard life. Tom, however, makes the fatal mistake of making his opposition clear to Roxanne. This naturally makes her determined to have her own way. The resulting conflict takes them from Jamaica to a pirate stronghold, and back again to England.

Tom is a likeable hero, even if you can't help wishing someone would give him Georgette Heyer's common sense advice: "Few things are as invigorating to high-spirited adolescents as opposition." (GH, The Black Sheep).

The only thing I don't care for is how he treats her after a climactic argument they have. Feeling powerless, Roxanne strikes out with words. Afterwords, Tom treats her coldly, more like a prisoner than a woman he is angry with but still loves. That bothered me. On the whole, however, I find Sylvia Thorpe to be better than most of what's out there today.