My dad bought this for me during our London book-shopping spree in early December. He has decided to help me cultivate a section of my personal library devoted to books about girl pirates. So far, the other books in the collection are Celia Rees's "Pirates!" and Joan Druett's "She Captains: Heroines and Hellions of the Sea."

It took me a while to get into this book, but once I got into it, I was really in. A fun and exciting vision of a fictional British Empire in which women are the most interesting heroes and villains. Towards the end, there's an awesome girl-pirate sword fight between Art Blastside, a.k.a. Piratica, Queen of the Seas, and her nemesis, the insufferable and wicked Little Goldie Girl. Also, the line: "Is none of England's crime in decent male hands?" No, not in this world, sir.