Customer Reviews

The Pirate's Daughter (Historical Romance)

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Captain Stuart Marston is ready to move on with his life. After losing his brother because of Nathaniel Wylde, an infamous pirate, Stuart has finally tracked down, captured, and watched Wylde hang for his crimes. After one more trip to the Barbados, Stuart expects to retire to his family estate, find a wife, and have children. While on his last trip to the Barbados, he finds a woman who is as beautiful as she is spirited - Cassandra Everson. He marries her quickly, and is happy to have found such a woman to be his wife - until he learns who she really is.

Cassandra Everson knew that her father, Nathaniel Wylde, was a notorious pirate, but she couldn't help but love him. After watching him hang, she is determined to leave London and those who scorn her because she is Wylde's daughter. She helps steal Wylde's impounded boat and cuts down Wylde's body, both of which are crimes in England, and sails to Barbados with her father's former crew to visit her guardian, John. While in Barbados, she meets the dashing Captain Marston, and soon finds herself in love with him. Although she believes she should tell Stuart about her father, she has no idea the role her father had played in the death of Stuart's brother, nor the role Stuart played in the death of her father. But once Stuart finds out who Cassandra is, he is enraged. How could he have married the daughter of his arch nemesis?

For those readers who like romantic pirate heroes, this isn't the book for you. The pirates in this book are villains, no matter how dashing and charming they may be at times. The author emphasizes this several times - pirates are murderers, thieves, and whatnot; and I must say, that is far more realistic than the dashing pirate heroes who often appear in romance novels.

I thought the book was okay. Cassandra was quite spirited and independent - until she married Stuart. Then she just became a weeping mass of hysteria for most of the passage back to England. Her character totally changes, and it's not a good change. They fell "in love" with one another way too quickly - Stuart has spent less than a few hours in her company but is already proposing marriage? And Cassandra swears up and down that she is in love with Stuart once they are married, but then she keeps saying that Stuart is such a stranger to her, she's not sure what he'll do or what he'll say, or even how he is feeling. Stuart also blames Cassandra for her father's crimes, nevermind that she had no knowledge of them and played no part in them. Even worse, Stuart just couldn't forgive Cassandra because her father killed his brother (and Cassandra didn't play any role in his brother's death), but Cassandra had apparently forgiven Stuart of his role in her father's death in less than a minute (and Stuart was pretty much responsible for his death, since he brought him back to England to be hanged).

The author's style of writing seemed disjointed and time didn't flow smoothly. Mere moments would stretch for pages and pages, and then weeks would fly by with only a paragraph or two. Transitions were pretty much non-existent between scenes - the author just stopped at one paragraph, there was a space, and another scene was started, with no transition or explanation. This could be quite confusing at times.

I have read another book by this author, and must say I'm disappointed in this one. It started out good, but after Stuart and Cassandra's rushed declarations of love, I just couldn't stay involved with the story, especially since much of it was spent with the main characters arguing and Cassandra weeping. I can't say I recommend this book - hopefully her next will be better.