Pirates Revenge

I won a copy of this book from Douglas Boren from the Alexander Chronicles E-Zine that he writes.

Josh Alexander is looking for answers. He wants to know where his family came from, and what the background might be. While searching the attic, he finds a chest tucked away, and within that chest, the beginning of an adventure.

Rafe Alexander was raised in Gin Alley, the roughest slum in London. His mother, the victim of a vicious rape, was dismissed from the house where she was serving as lead servant when it became clear what her condition was. While she was angry about it, she was also matter of fact. She never hid any of the details from Rafe, who she thought had a right to know. After she is brutally murdered one night while on her way home from work, Rafe turns to the one man he looks to as father figure. After they are beggared by the government, they turn to pirating and eventually wind up joining the crew of the Black Widow.
The Black Widow has her own ax to grind with the man who fathered Rafe, and revenge is the only thing she is living for. It has consumed her from the day that her husband was murdered and she almost lost her own life. Slow hard work has built up an armada of ships she calls her own, and each of her captains are fiercely loyal to her. She only has to command for them to act. After years of bidding her time and waiting for the right moment, she decides to act against the one man that turned her into a pirate. Don Ramirez believes that he can beat the Black Widow, but underestimates her sheer determination to see him ruined, one that ruins the lives of many men in the process.

Rafe, for the sake of his mother has decided he has had enough. Monique, whom the Black Widow took as captive for ransom, has captured his heart, and it is for her alone that he decides to put his pirating days behind him. Can they escape the Black Widow and live out their lives, or will she refuse to let him leave?


I liked the book for the most part. I wasn't really sure what to expect from it. I thought that some of the rape scenes were a bit to descriptive, but that is just me. By the middle of the book, I was having a hard time putting it down, because I had to know what happened next. Mr. Boren paints the pirates in such a way that you find yourself wishing for their success, even to the detriment and deaths of others, because, had they not been wronged, they would not have turned to piracy in the first place.