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Review--from BooksForum at ForumsAmerica:

© 2006 All Rights Reserved Readers & Writers Ink Reviews

CAPTAIN SINISTER'S LADY
By Darlene Marshall
Historical romance (19th century Florida)
March 2006
Amber Quill Press
ISBN: 1-59279-744-X

Anyone who has despaired of the current state of romance can rejoice that Darlene Marshall has written of pirates -- um, privateers, courageous women, dastardly villians and a happy ever after that readers can believe in.

Young widow Amanda Stephenson is en route from Yorkshire to her late husband's relatives in Charleston, where she hopes they will give her a home and a place to make her soaps and lotions. Sailing through the Florida Straits proves the unmaking of her plans when her ship is grounded and Captain Morgan Roberts takes it over.

Morgan is about ready to leave the privateering life and settle down, renouncing his other name, Captain Sinister. He has loved life on the sea but he's getting to be an old sea dog rather than a young pup. That Mrs. Stephenson, now she is a woman a man could settle down with. Too bad she thinks he's nothing more than Captain Sinister.

Perhaps a few days on their own -- with Morgan's cabin boy Cesar as chaperone -- might help persuade her there are worse things than marrying a retired man of the sea.

The voyage Amanda and Morgan take toward realizing their hearts' desire is filled with humor, adventure and engaging secondary characters, from second-in-command Gabriel Lopez and his fiancee to the proprietors of a very special inn.

Far too many romances now are filled with useless information and endless scenes of peril that appear manufactured. But not this novel. Darlene Marshall knows how to weave action to character and adventure to the situation in which her characters find themselves. CAPTAIN SINISTER'S LADY is filled with high adventure and heart-stirring romance that fit the time in which the story is set. The good nature and great humor of the main characters and their friends remain with the reader long after their story is finished. And it's a guarantee that fairy tales will never look the same again after learning Captain Sinister's interpretation of the classics.

-- Reviewed by Lynne Perednia


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