Journal Entry 1 by tqd from Sydney, New South Wales Australia on Friday, October 02, 2009

Young Lady Dona, fleeing with her two children a debauched lifestyle in 17th century London which has left her ashamed of her behaviour and disenchanted with her life, returns to a relatively small house in Cornwall, and settles in to rethink her life, only to discover pirates (arrrr) are in the vicinity. She stumbles across said pirates, and they give her back her sense of adventure and spirit, and a love of life again.

In some ways, this is a fairly standard spiffingly fun adventure romance (with pirates, arrrr), only our heroine is already married and so is embarking on an affair which is certainly not standard to the genre. My copy rather sniffily says on the back that Dona is a character that we would all love, despite her somewhat "questionable" behaviour.

I think that the reviewer who wrote those lines never got stuck in a miserable marriage, and quite possibly Dona is a character many women love because of her behaviour. (Not that I'm in a miserable marriage, but looking back at some previous relationships, I am incredibly grateful for living in an era when one isn't bound irrevocably to one man. I made some choices that would never have lasted happily, although they were fun at the time.)