In 1823, Tory Lightfoot runs away from Boston's soul-stifling Worthen Academy for Women where her rebellious nature and mixed blood are the source of constant scorn and abuse. Seeking freedom that she knows she'll never find at the school, she disguises herself as a young man and stows away aboard a merchantman bound for Barbados--only to be captured by pirates. Through a series of well-meant but disastrous choices, Tory winds up accepting the pirates' invitation to join their crew. She quickly takes to the life of an outlaw, joining the buccaneers as they plunder ships while they dodge the pirate-hunting American "West India Squadron." But the authorities turn out to be the least of her troubles, for it is her heart that tests her character and ability to survive. First there is Matty, a handsome gentleman's-son-turned-pirate out to prove himself on his own terms. There's also Jack, her mentor, who reluctantly helps her adapt to the brigand's life.
I grew up in Hermosa Beach, CA, watching old movies on TV, and graduated from the University of California at Santa Cruz with a decorative, but not especially useful B.A. in Aesthetic Studies. I worked in a movie theater and a bookstore before launching my writing career in a local alternative weekly.
My swashbuckling historical novel, THE WITCH FROM THE SEA was published in 2001. (Must've been the influence of all those old Errol Flynn movies on TV.) A German-language edition was published in Europe in 1998 as DIE HEIMLICHE PIRATIN (THE SECRET FEMALE PIRATE) (you can check it out on Amazon.de), followed by a trade paperback in 2000. (No, I did not write it in German; I had a terrific foreign rights agent!) I plan to continue the adventure begun in WITCH in two more books, RUNAWAYS, and A COMEDY OF MARRIAGE.
My short story, PROSERPINA'S CURSE'in which a witty, Restoration-era pirate finds himself beguiled away to Neverland to play villain to a pack of malicious little boys was published in the Summer 2006 issue of PARADOX Magazine. The story is an excerpt from my novel-in-progress ALIAS HOOK.
I have never lived more than a mile from the ocean. I like to hear sea lions barking in the dead of night.
