Christine Dorsey’s THE CAPTAIN’S CAPTIVE – English Girl and American Privateer Fall in Love in the War of 1812

Set at the beginning of the War of 1812, The Captain’s Captive is the story of Charlotte Winston, a young Englishwoman who lived in her daydreams while caring for her dying mother. When her mother passes on, Charlotte sails from England to Montreal to join her father, a general in the British army who has arranged a marriage for her to Captain Levid of the Royal Navy.

When Charlotte’s ship is fired upon by the American captain Jonathan Knox, the British captain quickly turns over control and Charlotte becomes Jon’s prisoner. Charlotte tells him she is betrothed to Captain Levid. Jon wants to know where he can find the English captain who impressed Jon’s younger brother (impressment was one of the causes of the war). Charlotte has only a vague idea where Levid is, and doesn’t like the man herself, but tells Knox she doesn’t know. Jon doesn’t believe her and decides to keep her in his cabin until she gives him the information he wants.

 

Initially, I thought the heroine a bit simpering and over theatrical (her voice squeaks and she shuts her eyes when reality is too much for her) and I did get a bit tired of her “fantasy pirate” that supposedly was a twin for the hero. The hero seemed too much of a gentleman. Those impressions changed somewhat as the book progressed, because the characters changed. In the last half of the book, Jon became more "real" and Charlotte acquired a backbone.

 

To my thinking there was a bit too much introspection and too much sex...the latter seemed to be piled on irrespective of the plot (or any concern for her getting pregnant, I might add). Don’t get me wrong; I like a good love scene, but I don’t need one each time the hero and heroine meet. And why was his family surprised to learn she was British and her father in the Royal Army? After all, she was raised in England (Oxfordshire) and I assume had an accent and other characteristics that gave her away.

 

There is no question Dorsey can write well and tell a good story. And I admire how she wove in the history and the abuses of the British military along the Chesapeake. Her battle scenes are realistic, and she captured well the terror of the night the British sacked Washington.

 

Constance O’Banyon’s VELVET CHAINS – Superb Storytelling in this Privateer Adventure from the American Revolution

Set during the American Revolution, 1779-1781, this tells the story of Lady Season Chatsworth, a young English beauty who fakes a tumble in the hay with the stable boy on their English estate to avoid a dreaded arranged marriage. Her reputation in tatters, her father the duke sends her away to America to marry her cousin, Sir Edmund Kensworthy, captain of His Majesty’s Guards in New York. But her reputation as a loose woman, false though it may be, has followed her to the Colonies.

Both Edmund and his handsome friend Lucas Carrington, to whom Season is immediately attracted, assume she is free with her favors, much to her chagrin. Meanwhile, there is an American privateer called “the Raven” terrorizing the British and winning the praise of the patriots.

This is a great story of a worthy heroine who is constantly faced with the foibles of men who underestimate her. She put up with so much one could only wonder at the wisdom of a 19-year-old girl. When she is captured by the Raven and held for exchange of an American prisoner, the adventure begins and Season finds herself in love with the masked man who takes her innocence.

O’Banyon vividly portrays the emotions of the Colonists with the British living among them. Our hero is a spy as well as a privateer and I loved that! This is one that will hold your interest. And though I might not have wanted to wait until the very end for Season to learn The Truth, I cannot deny I was absorbed enough to hang in there.

A few nits: With her careful attention to historical details, it was surprising O’Banyon got the forms of address wrong for the British nobility. If her father was the Duke of Chatsworth, their surname would not be “Chatsworth,” and she would not be “Lady Chatsworth” (that would have been her mother); she would be “Lady Season (surname).” Also, I just have to say that naming your daughter “Season” in England at that time (when “Season” referred to the London social season) would be like naming an American girl “Cotillion.” Seemed bizarre and it distracted. But these were minor in the scheme of the whole story.

This is a bodice-ripper, a privateer tale and an American patriotic romance. And it’s a keeper.

Christine Dorsey’s THE CAPTAIN’S CAPTIVE – English Girl and American Privateer Fall in Love in the War of 1812

July is American Patriotic month on the blog, that time when I feature romances set during America’s wars up to and including the Civil War. I’m starting with one from the War of 1812, the last war fought with the British.

Set at the beginning of the War of 1812, The Captain’s Captive is the story of Charlotte Winston, a young Englishwoman who lived in her daydreams while caring for her dying mother. When her mother passes on, Charlotte sails from England to Montreal to join her father, a general in the British army who has arranged a marriage for her to Captain Levid of the Royal Navy.

When Charlotte’s ship is fired upon by the American captain Jonathan Knox, the British captain quickly turns over control and Charlotte becomes Jon’s prisoner. Charlotte tells him she is betrothed to Captain Levid. Jon wants to know where he can find the English captain who impressed Jon’s younger brother (impressment was one of the causes of the war). Charlotte has only a vague idea where Levid is, and doesn’t like the man herself, but tells Knox she doesn’t know. Jon doesn’t believe her and decides to keep her in his cabin until she gives him the information he wants.

Initially, I thought the heroine a bit simpering and over theatrical (her voice squeaks and she shuts her eyes when reality is too much for her) and I did get a bit tired of her “fantasy pirate” that supposedly was a twin for the hero. The hero seemed too much of a gentleman. Those impressions changed somewhat as the book progressed, because the characters changed. In the last half of the book, Jon became more "real" and Charlotte acquired a backbone.

To my thinking there was a bit too much introspection and too much sex...the latter seemed to be piled on irrespective of the plot (or any concern for her getting pregnant, I might add). Don’t get me wrong; I like a good love scene, but I don’t need one each time the hero and heroine meet. And why was his family surprised to learn she was British and her father in the Royal Army? After all, she was raised in England (Oxfordshire) and I assume had an accent and other characteristics that gave her away.

There is no question Dorsey can write well and tell a good story. And I admire how she wove in the history and the abuses of the British military along the Chesapeake. Her battle scenes are realistic, and she captured well the terror of the night the British sacked Washington. For all that she gets full marks and a spot on the best list.

Review: Gail MacMillan’s CALEDONIAN PRIVATEER – Unusual Regency with a Scottish Canadian Hero Acting the Privateer

Set in 1812, Emma Prescott flees Squire Falkner and a forced marriage in the dark of night, hoping to get to London and a ship that will take her to her brother in the Caribbean. She runs into Scottish Captain Morgan Reynolds who, by the way she is dressed, believes her to be the mistress of some British lord.

Eager to get back to London and his fiancée, and then set sail for New Brunswick, Morgan helps the mysterious runaway only because of his Highland hatred for her English pursuers. When his fiancé deserts him for a British lord, he talks Emma into pretending to be his wife so he won’t look the jilted man and they sail for Canada. With a necklace that once belonged to Marie Antoinette hidden in her bodice and a pack of hounds at her heels, Emma has few choices.

I loved the beginning. Her escape was very convincing. The hero and heroine are worthy: Morgan is a sexy, powerful and protective hero (though he does fall from grace a bit as the story goes on); and Emma’s thinking is always clear and logical (nice for a change in romance). I liked the fact the scene changed from England to Canada and the memory of all the Scots had to endure. It was interesting to see the other side of the War of 1812, too, since Morgan is a privateer, but not for America.

This was MacMillan’s debut novel and she did a great job. Her dialog is realistic and convincing and her story will hold your interest. There is no love scene but lots of interaction on the physical level (and there seems to be a fair amount of wenching going on).

The only negatives are a few improbable moments when their romance is tossed away for her stealing the necklace (being a whore was ok, but stealing was a no-no). Overall, the story is a good one. An unusual Regency, to be sure.

Review: Janelle Taylor’s FORTUNE’S FLAMES – Exciting Adventure in New Orleans during the War of 1812

Set during the War of 1812, this is the story of Maren Jones, an American who is sailing on her cousin’s ship from England to her home in New Orleans when a privateer by the name of Captain Hawk attacks and boards their ship. 

The infamous Captain Hawk is actually Jared Morgan, a patriot from Savannah who is working for President Madison and looking for traitors supporting the British. Maren’s cousin, Eric, tells her he is also working for the President, but it seems he is lying to her about many things.

Maren met Jared when she was 15 and was so enthralled, she disguised herself as a lad and followed the handsome young man around the wharf. So, when he captures her ship and then steals a kiss, she does not resist. Jared finds her enchanting, but he is also suspicious of both her cousin and her.

Original cover

 

This is a tale with many twists and turns and wartime treachery as Maren and Jared come together to solve some mysterious happenings and find a way to be together. Jared is certainly a worthy hero I could not help but love. And Maren, having lost her father and mother, is determined to make it on her own with the gambling club left to her, Lady Luck.

There’s a surprise at the end, too!

Buy on Amazon.

Daring Privateers in the American War of Independence by Regan Walker

July is American Patriotic Romances month on my blog so it seemed fitting to begin with the story of the daring privateers who helped America win its independence. 

 

There is something about the idea of privateers that stirs my blood. It has all the excitement and danger of piracy on the high seas, but with a significant difference: the privateers, armed merchant ships, operated with government sanction, “Letters of Marque” that allowed the private vessel to act under color of law.

Privateers were a large part of the total military force at sea during the 17th and 18th centuries. During the Revolutionary War (1775-1783), privateers acting for their respective governments—American, British and French, among others—seized thousands of ships, sometimes the same ship more than once! 

Pictured below is the American privateer brig, the General Montgomery, engaged in action with the British merchant vessel, the Millern, which it captured off Ireland in July 1777. The prize was sent to America but later re-captured by the British.

American privateer General Montgomery battling Millern, an English ship

At the time the Colonies declared their independence, the Continental Navy had only 31 ships (that number later increased to 64). But the sea fighting ability of the young country vastly increased as Congress issued Letters of Marque to nearly 1,700 American privateers.

The first privateer in the war might have been the American brig Reprisal, which on November 29, 1776, sailed into the port of Lorient in Brittany with Benjamin Franklin on board and two British prize ships in tow. The British protested, of course, and the owners of the seized vessels sought compensation. Lord Stormont, the British ambassador in Paris called Benjamin Franklin “a dangerous Engine” and voiced his suspicions the American statesman was on some “secret Commission from Congress.” He was.

The French response in allowing the American captain to sell his prizes in France was a tacit recognition of the young country’s independence. Franklin must have been delighted for he was there to solicit French aid.

Responding to the sale of the two prize ships, the Public Advertiser, a London newspaper said,

Is not this acknowledging the American Privateer’s Commission? And is not

that an Acknowledgement of the Independency of America?

Indeed it was, and it would not be the last such acknowledgement. The privateers were crucial to gaining recognition of the legitimacy of America’s war against Britain.

In my novel, To Tame the Wind, the hero, Captain Simon Powell, a British privateer, captures the daughter of a French pirate turned privateer for the Americans. Simon thinks to hold Claire for ransom to regain his seized ship and his crew. It never occurred to him he might not want to give her back.

Ben Franklin is a character and the one who issued the French captain his Letter of Marque. During the war, Franklin issued Letters of Marque to three ships: the Black Prince, the Black Princess, and the Fear Not. During a 15-month period in 1779-1780, these three ships captured 114 prizes. One of the reasons Ben Franklin sought these prizes was to use the captured British crews to ransom American seamen languishing in British prisons.

American privateers captured over 10,000 British seamen, keeping them out of the British Navy. In 1777, George Washington's armies totaled about 11,000 men. At the same time there were 11,000 privateers at sea intercepting British shipping in the Atlantic, Caribbean, and even between Ireland and England. Together, the Continental Navy and privateers captured 16,000 British prisoners, a substantial contribution in comparison with the 15,000 prisoners taken by the entire Continental Army before the surrender at Yorktown.

If you want to be swept away into this era and experience life on a privateer with a handsome British captain, then you just might enjoy To Tame the Wind!

 

From the 5-star review by Pirates and Privateers Magazine:

“Daring sea battles, roguish lurkers, ill-treated prisoners of war and deceitful dandies add dashes of spice to this historical romance, making it one readers will savor long after they turn the last page."

Buy on Amazon. See the Pinterest Storyboard for To Tame the Wind.