Reckless

When pirate Henry Dyer’s ship captures the French frigate Sans Souci, nobody seems to know why Captain Buckler has been chasing such a neglected and unprepossessing prize ship. The puzzle only gets more perplexing when they take the ship and find an English girl in leg irons. It’s an old and popular love story – the pirate and the virgin who steals his heart away, only this time the pirate is the virgin and the girl isn’t a girl at all. She is James ‘Jem’ Exley, thief, molly, occasional actor and full time transvestite. Jettisoned to the New World in order to spare his aristocratic family any further disgrace, Jem is glamorous, flamboyant and fascinating to Henry, a former quiet country boy who became a pirate when his merchant vessel was robbed. At only nineteen, Henry is determined to prove himself a man one way or the other, and is astonished to find that nothing makes him feel like more of a man than his increasingly reckless passion for Jem. As their love leads them into trouble, the mysterious circumstances of Jem’s capture lead Henry deeper into a mystery that not only upends his whole world, but sees them running for their lives across the Caribbean. Stolen jewels, scheming Captains and devious drag artists collide in this steamy eighteenth century romp from the author of These Violent Delights and Going Sasquatch.