Piratica

Being a Daring Tale of a Singular Girl’s Adventure Upon the High Seas
Presented Most Handsomely by the Notorious Tanith Lee

Sixteen-year-old Artemesia (Art) Blastside doesn’t remember any other life than the cold, confined one of the Angel’s Academy for Young Maidens. Then one day she hits her head and remembers. She remembers her mother, Piratica, the daring Pirate Queen of the Seas, weaving in and out of a fight with her silver cutlass. She remembers her mother’s crew, a medley of men, some grizzled and some barely older than herself. She remembers sailing away in the sunset, chests full of jewels and gold, and her mother’s pink version of the Jolly Roger, the “Jolly Molly,” flying high above her head as she scampered up the rigging. And so Art, not able to stand living at the horrid academy a moment longer than the six years she’s already spent there, runs away. But the truth is that Molly Faith, Piratica, Queen of the High Seas, is dead, having been blown up by one of her own cannons. When Art meets her mother’s old crew, they are working as advertising a coffee company, riding the dinky ship the Pirate Coffee. Art convinces the men to come with her to be real pirates again, and, with much grumbling, and murmurs of, “She’s not Molly,” they agree. Art, taking on her mother’s title of Piratica, captures her first ship and makes it her own, renaming it the Unwelcome Stranger and flying above it the Jolly Molly. A cruel pirate captain, Little Goldie Girl, wants a map in Art’s possession, and Art begins to think that it’s real treasure map, not a fake. So, setting out with her crew, her mother’s parrot, Plunqwette, and Muck, the Cleanest Dog in England, Art sails toward the treasure island, and whatever waits there for her.

Though the puns and sometimes ridiculous play on words quickly get old, Piratica is worth reading if you’re interested in pirates and life on the high seas. Look for both Piratica II: Return to Parrot Island and Piratica III: The Family Sea (not released in the U.S. yet).