Arriving home from school, Bertilla is sad to find her home unprepared for her and her widowed mother is far from pleased to see her. Even worse, Lady Alvinston, a celebrated Society beauty, makes it clear that she has no intention of allowing her pretty eighteen-year-old daughter anywhere near the glittering London social scene she enjoys so much herself.

A Pirate's Love Sailing westward toward the Caribbean sun, young Bettina Verlaine obediently sets out to fulfill the promise made by her father--but not by her heart -- a prearranged marriage destined not to be...once the notorious Captain Tristan's pirate ship appears on the horizon. Abducted by the bold and handsome brigand, the pale-haired beauty surrenders her innocence in the warm caress of the tropical winds -- detesting her virile captor for enslaving her. . .yet loving him for the passionate spell he casts over fragile, yearning heart.

A beautiful and ruthless lady from Ohio, Zeo Zoe Wilkins made her living as a gold digger, marrying a series of wealthy older men. She hired attorney Jesse James, Jr. to provide legal muscle to extract money from an ex-husband. On the night of March 15, 1924, she was brutally murdered in her Kansas City home. Deftly mixing historical conjecture with forensic fact, the author follows the opportunistic, eccentric, and troubled lives of Wilkins and James, while making a convincing case that their mutual avarice led to a murderous confrontation that bloody night.

From the crow's nest to the hold, from the high seas to the island of buried treasure, this boy hangs out with the most rough-and-tumble of rogues. And at the end of each day, he gets tucked in by the fiercest pirate of them all: his loving and tender dad.