Alone and hundreds of mile from land, how will Meg Eaton hold off a crew of mutineers?
Meg, a high society courtesan desperate to escape London, marries Elias Bramwell, bosun aboard a British frigate, to secure a quick passage to India. But when mutineers cast Elias and the other officers adrift in a leaky boat in the middle of the Indian Ocean, Meg must fend for herself.
She wins a temporary reprieve with promises of the fabled treasure of pirate Ben Ringgold, buried on a distant island. Though the island is real, the treasure exists only in a seaman's tale once told her by Elias.
Wielding both her knowledge of men and a ready cutlass, Meg plays the crew against each other, buying time as turning pirate, they descend into ever greater savagery. But the treasure island draws near, and with it, reckoning.
If you thrill to tales of ringing cutlasses, broadsides cutting through the salt breeze, and do-or-die romance, then come aboard HMS
Cygnet
as she blazes a bloody course through the Golden Age of Piracy.