2023 Eric Hoffer Book Award Category Finalist Live the life of a pirate during the golden age of piracy! It's 1715 and Spain rules the Caribbean. Young Abigail Margaret Mary Pennyworth isn't happy leaving her friends in England for the New World, but she has no say in where her missionary family goes as the Pennyworths set off for America. Not long before the end of the three-month voyage, their merchant ship is captured by Spanish pirates, and Abby is separated from her family and all she has known. But before she can adjust, the Spanish vessel is captured in turn—by the notorious English pirate Benjamin Hornigold, the leader of the Pirate Republic in Nassau. Hornigold renames the Spanish vessel Mary and decides that, rather than serving Abby to the sharks, he'll have her serve as a member of his crew. And so starts her new life as the Captain's cabin boy. Abby's adventures begin as they seize Spanish vessels in the Caribbean and sail in consort with many of the famous pirates of the day: Blackbeard (Edward Thache), Black Sam Bellamy and his partner, Paulsgrave Williams, Major Stede Bonnet, and Olivier Levasseau. In Nassau, she meets Woodes Rogers, the new governor of the Bahamas, and Hornigold's Jacobite-sympathizing nemeses, Henry Jennings and Charles Vane. Join Abby as she lives the life of a pirate after Queen Anne's War. And yes Abby, they do hang pirates—even if they're girls.