Customer Reviews

Mace Taxco's Anne Bonney and Mary Read (Women Buccaneers)

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"!BUYER BEWARE!" This is a message from the author, Mace Taxco ([...]) to any potential buyer of my two books from a seller other than me on this page. ("Anne Bonney and Mary Read" & "A Storm At Weatherly") As of this date in time - 01 May 2010- none of my books, even when brand new and personally signed (autographed) by me has EVER sold for more than $16.95 plus s/h. And these would have also been the true, final and correct four hundred page plus versions. Anything less should not be for sale on this site. The Bonney/Read story should only be the one with the black cover and the white lettering along with the white skull and crossed swords on it. And the Storm story should only be the one with the red cover and white lettering. Anything other than these should not be for 'sale' and have not been authorized by me. **************************************
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I have had problems keeping both my books available as my publishing company went under during the initial start of the recent economic downturn and I have not been able to find a replacement publisher to pick up the rights and continue printing my books uninterupted since than. But with the expected release this year of my third book in this 'sea trilogy' which is called "LightHouse", I'm hoping to have my newest publisher pick up the earlier rights on the first two books and reprint and redistribute them so that they will be available through Amazon again-new, unabridged, correctly priced and signed by me! If you have any questions, comments or criicisms please feel free to email me at the above address. Thank you! Mace Taxco

Mace Taxco...D.M.Exe here. Just finished reading "A Storm At Weatherly", the second book in your sea trilogy. Fantastic! Why amazon has not given you a separate page for it, I can't imagine but anyhow. Thanks for the discount you gave me (and everyone else) when I ordered both your books as a set, "Anne Bonney and Mary Read" and "A Storm At Weatherly". And thank you, thank you, thank you for not writing another book about female pirates! Seems like everybody and his grandmother these days is writing about female pirates and though yours was one of the first (1998) and the best in the recent offerings dished up I was still glad your second was of a more singular nature. A story based on a true incident that happened to an American merchant seaman at a sinister castle in Victorian Scotland was a knockout. I enjoyed it immensely and it actually put me in mind of Nathaniel Hawthorne's "House of Seven Gables" if anything. Writing it in the style and wording of Victorian days was a plus too. Best of luck with it and be sure to advise me when book three in your trilogy is ready.

"Anne Bonney and Mary Read" is a 453 page 'atlas' almost on the lives of these two women. A nearly day by day account from their birth until their capture-weaving known, established and documented facts about them into historical drama and fictional filler to suggest what 'might','could' or probably 'did' happen around these known facts in their lives which creates a fluid chronologically engrossing, entertaining and readable novel or story as opposed to a cold, short-lived biography. And this all accounts for its unusual length. Divided into three chapters (Anne's Story, Mary's Story and Anne and Mary's Story-together after they met) The author attempts to write it in the old English of the times with a 'you are there' kind of approach and intentionally never has a final editing done on it because in his own words...'I wanted the story to be as rough, unpolished and imperfect as the people I was writing about'. PIRATES. Be prepared for misspellings, grammatical errors, erasures and uncorrected punctuations. To quote the author again,..."I further wanted it to look as though I'd written it on the deck of a pirate ship as I sailed with them and having spent four years at sea as a merchant seaman myself I knew very well how to do this'. The author's 'rendition' of Anne and Mary's lives (and there are many other renditions available on this website) leaves nothing unexplained, nothing unresolved and would probably be best described as an 'adult' pirate story (in its comprehension level) for mature readers as it is no children's stereotyped escapade with parrots,peg-legs and pirate 'snarls' and Hollywood enunciations but a gritty, glamorless, realistic and black and white look at the world of these criminals through the eyes of the two most extraordinary women of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries who lived and saw it.

Loved Taxco's book to death but was just as delighted to learn from the publishers (BonneyReadExpedition@webtv.net) that it was only the first in his 'sea trilogy' and that the second ("A Storm At Weatherly") was out and available too. It's even better than the first and I recommend you order both if you love sea stories and historical drama based on fact.