Sea Witch (Voyages of Captain Jesamiah Acorn, #1)

by Helen Hollick

The Time: The golden age of piracy - 1716 The Place: The pirate round - from Africa to the Caribbean At 15 Jesamiah Acorne escapes the bullying of his elder half brother to become a pirate with only two loves - the sea and his freedom. But his life is to change after an attack on a merchant ship off the coast of South Africa when he meets the mysterious Tiola Oldstagh, an insignificant girl - or so he assumes until he discovers her true identity, that of a white witch. Tiola and Jesamiah becomes lovers, but the wealthy Stefan van Overstratten also wants Tiola as his wife. Meanwhile, Jesamiah's half-brother, Phillipe Mereno, is determined to seek revenge for resentments of the past. When the call of the sea and an opportunity to commandeer a beautiful ship, the Sea Witch, is put in Jesamiah's path he must choose between his life as a pirate or his love for Tiola. He wants both - but Mereno and van Overstratten want him dead.Tiola must use her gift of Craft to rescue her lover, but first she must brave the darkness of the ocean depths and confront the supernatural presence of Tethys, the goddess of the sea, who will stop at nothing to claim the soul of Jesamiah Acorne for herself.

• ISBN10: 1906236607
• ISBN13: 9781906236601
• Publish Date: 20 June 2011
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 24 May 2022
• Publish Country: GB
• Imprint: SilverWood Books Ltd
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 316
• Language: English

Reviews

[elysium]

I don’t think I’ve ever read a book about pirates so this was interesting. I’ve liked the pirate movies I’ve seen though. Erroll Flynn, people!

I was curious to see how Hollick will show the pirates because I liked her King Arthur books and Arthur wasn’t all nice guy. We get realistic picture of pirate life, there’s murder, whores and lot of rum but Jesamiah is still very likeable guy. Who doesn’t love a man with troubling past? We also meet Jesamiah’s half-brother who is total asshole and while he didn’t have happy childhood either, he’s still an asshole.

Our heroine is Tiola, who also happens to be a witch, carries her own secrets about her past. She first sees Jesamiah when she is quite young and has a crush on him ever since but I liked that when they meet again, despite her crush she holds on to her morals and doesn’t blindly follow Jesamiah and his pirate ways.

The only thing I wasn’t huge fan was the mystical element; Tiola’s craft and especially Tethys. I’m not fan in general mixing magic and historical fiction so that’s not a surprise. It didn’t ruin the book or anything but I could have lived without it.

This was fun and enjoyable read and I learned a lot about ships and what everything is called.