Join us for an in-person event with author Rachel Rueckert, to celebrate the release of her new book, The Determined.
The Determined is a groundbreaking novel of historical fiction based on the real experiences of two of the Golden Age of Pirates’ most infamous women, Anne Bonny and Mary Read, who dared to subvert the rules and gender roles of their time.
1721, Spanish Town, Jamaica. Captured, convicted, and pregnant, twenty-three-year-old Anne Bonny faces the gallows. When writer Captain Charles Johnson enters the garrison, she strikes a deal: she’ll tell this opportunistic fool her story if he sends a doctor to her friend, Mary Read, who’s battling prison fever.
Prior to their arrest, life at sea had offered Anne and Mary freedom that few women knew. Anne, born into scandal in Ireland, seeks home and elusive safety in South Carolina. Discovering the opposite, she makes a bitter bargain for emergency passage to the Bahamas.
Across the Atlantic in England, Mary confronts her own limitations as an illegitimate daughter. She sneaks into a merchant crew, disguised as a cabin boy. But when war sends Mary into the cavalry, she meets a challenge even she might not rival.
When their paths collide in Nassau, a notorious “pirate den,” Anne and Mary find kinship aboard the Revenge—the fastest ship in the Caribbean. With the governor out for blood, every raid brings more risk. From the high seas to the depths of a Jamaican prison, Anne and Mary must navigate impossible choices, each determined to taste freedom again.
Rachel Rueckert has been pirate-obsessed since she was a young girl. She wore a plastic sword through her belt loops, drew ships on tests when she didn’t know the answers, and dressed as a pirate every year for Halloween—including in her high school senior picture. She is now an award-winning writer, editor, and teacher who holds an MFA from Columbia University and an M.Ed from Boston University. She is fascinated by unconventional journeys and enjoys excavating real-life people—such as Mary Read, Anne Bonny, and Sam Bellamy—from the sands of history. After a decade in Boston, she is currently based in the Bay Area. Learn more at https://rachelrueckert.com/
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Books will be for sale at this event.
Please register, so we can set the community room up with appropriate seating.