Neptune's Daughters

On a holiday in the Bahamas a college student buys an old sea chest filled with ancient papers. She discovers these papers are original diaries, newspaper articles, letters and even a spy dossier written by and about famous historical female pirates. These original historical documents were collect first by a 1600 pirate, Captain Johnson, then added to over the centuries by his island family. The college student protects and adds to this collection even as an adult, a college professor. As she goes through them, file by file, the life story of ten infamous female pirates unfolds starting with a vengeful 1300 French wife turned pirate and ending with a 1940 Chinese pirate and spy.

A young college student acquires an old chest filled with ancient papers during her spring break on a Bahamian island. The ancient papers are the original writings and reports on historic women pirates dating back to the 1300. Is this chest the greatest pirate treasure ever discovered, or is it the biggest maritime hoax? In the chest are letters written by Jeanne de Clisson in the 1300, The Lioness of Brittany turned to piracy to avenge the brutal beheading of her husband. In 1519 Sayyida al Hurr recorded her deeds, from the horror of fleeing Spain to her rule as the political leader of the richest port in Morocco, and as a feared pirate and partner to the pirate Red Beard. Grace O'Malley plundered merchant ships in the Irish Seas and Atlantic Ocean. She was her clan's leader and protector who fought battles against the British and even faced down Queen Elizabeth I. In the late sixteen hundreds and early seventeen hundreds two female pirates terrorized the shipping in the Caribbean: the beautiful Jacquotte Delahaye aka Back From the Dead Red, and Marie-Anne Dominique du Pres, called Anne Dieu-le-Veut, pirate partner and wife of the famous pirate Laurens de Graaff. Anne Bonny, while awaiting execution, wrote of her pirating days with Mary Read and Calico Jack. American pirate Rachael Wall did her pirating in the late 1700s around the New England coast, but was caught and hung for stealing a bonnet. One of the most humorous, but deadly pirates, was Sadie Farrell, The Goat, who practiced the fine art of piracy on New York City rivers in 1869. The two cruelest, and most efficient female pirates were Chinese. Ching Shih, a former prostitute controlled thousands of pirates in the early 1800, and Lai Choi San, who pirated in the China Sea prior to WW II. The pirates' stories are told, in one form or another, by the papers in the chest. The college student, now a college professor, has treasured these writings, and added to the collection over the years. Now as she returns with her treasured chest to the site of her prized acquisition, she hopes reading the papers in this famous pirate location will give her a better understanding of these infamous, courage, but unique women.

Sure that there was nothing between California and New Orleans, easterner Barbara Marriott was delighted and surprised to find a whole new beautiful world in the West and instantly became captured by its mysterious and exciting history. Her interest produced eleven fiction and nonfiction books on the historical southwest including her International book winner Paint 'N Spurs, the biography of the Cowboy Artist of America founders. Among her multi-award winning books on the southwest are In Our Own Words and Two Six Shooters Beat Four Aces, the Federal Writers Project interviews of Arizona's pioneers. Marriott also authored two books on twentieth century U.S. Navy aviation history. Her Fleet Angels is the story of the navy's helicopter program told by the men and women who flew and fly them, and The Ghost of World War II is the history of NAS Banana River, a WWII navy base. Marriott holds a Ph.D. in Cultural Anthropology, something she says has helped her understand the people and cultures she writes about. In her varied professional career she has been an advertising copywriter, a journalist, and a college professor. She created a widely read English newspaper in Nice, France, and was a Vogue Prix de Paris finalist. She is listed in Who's Who in American Women.