pirates | Linda McLaughlin/Lyndi Lamont

Pirate Lady Katherine Bone is here with a Holiday Recipe and an excerpt from her latest historical romance, The Pirate’s Debt.

Photo by belchonock from depositphotos.com

Thanks for welcoming me aboard ship, Lady Linda. The holidays ARR a perfect time to celebrate romance and try out new things, especially recipes. Special thanks to Author Tina Gayle for organizing this #Holiday Romance and #Recipe Exchange. I’m looking forward to the tasty additions I’ll be adding to my recipe file! Huzzah!

As you can see, I love the holidays. ’Tis the season for sharing and I’m especially happy to reveal one of my all-time FAVorite recipes, one that comes from my days as an Army wife. This salad is a healthy and delicious addition to any meal, any time of the year. The reds and greens are super festive and punch up the color at the dinner table. I get loads of compliments on this one!

Dewitt Salad

Ingredients:

Head of Broccoli (small pieces)
1 cup Celery, chopped
1 cup Onion, chopped
½ cup Green Pepper, sliced
1 cup Red Grapes, halved
1 cup Green Grapes, halved
½ lb. Bacon, fried crisp
½ cup Pecan, optional

Dressing:

1/3 cup Sugar
1 cup Miracle Whip
1 tsp. Vinegar

Combine all ingredients and mix well.
Best to prepare ingredients then add dressing closer to serving time.

When your feet are too tired to walk, your shopping is done, and you’ve got spare time on your hands, there’s nothing like diving into a good book. Here’s a peak at my latest release, The Pirate’s Debt, the continuing story of the Black Regent in my Regent’s Revenge Series.

Lady Chloe Walsingham is an enthusiastic gothic romance reader and hopeless romantic focused solely on finding her perfect hero. She also happens to have a penchant for getting into trouble. So when the man she loves disappears after a scandalous duel, she decides to follow him to the ends of the Earth. To do so, however, Chloe must evade her brother, an infamous revenue man, and board a ship bound for Penzance. And nothing in her beloved books can prepare her for the harsh realities of wreckers who ply the coast.

After his father destroyed the lives of countless innocent people, Basil Halford, Earl of Markwick is willing to do anything to earn back his honor. Betrayed by his blood and his reputation ruined, Markwick answers the request of a well-heeled duke and dons the Black Regent’s mask to repay the debt. His task? Rescuing a young woman who is chasing down a ghost of a man.

But a pirate has plenty of enemies, and Markwick isn’t any different. No matter how diligent a captain he may be, sailing to Lady Chloe’s rescue involves risking not only the Regent’s legacy but the last thing he can afford to lose…his heart.

Available at Amazon, Nook, Kobo & Apple

~ Excerpt ~

Seated in Markwick’s cutter, cloaked in his clothing, Chloe felt incredibly shallow. To think that she’d cast all inhibitions to the wind and sailed off for an enterprising adventure, only to need to be rescued by the very man she’d set out to find. Though she hadn’t known she’d be finding the Black Regent.

Regent sightings were rare for the average villager. She’d never known anyone who’d actually met the gallant hero that stole from the rich and gave to the poor.

Oh, to be sitting so near to him now, to have touched him, to be in love with him, is even more exceptional than I imagined it would be!

She fought to curb the jubilation pulsing through her veins, igniting her headstrong passions, and forced herself to remember this was all about her devotion to Markwick and the lives lost on the very ship on which she’d obtained passage. To anyone else, the Black Regent might be a dashing pirate who’d just plucked her off the Mohegan’s decks and saved her from certain death, but Markwick was also the man she loved.

She sighed, half trembling, half in despair. Unable to tear her gaze away, she desired to stretch out her fingers and touch the man, to assure herself that he wasn’t a figment of her imagination. What kind of nightmare would that be, to discover she was dreaming and that Markwick really wasn’t there?

Oh, but the blackguard truly was just as she’d envisioned! In her mind’s eye, he’d been a swashbuckling champion born from the pages of fiction and fantasy. Now, sitting before her, was the living man whose very existence defied her infatuations because he was the man she loved. Broad-shouldered, lean, with a firm authoritarian profile, he stood a head taller than she did, and oh . . . when he’d held her in his arms on board the Mohegan, a lightheaded euphoria had immediately stunned her. Markwick had stood behind her before but only to teach her how to shoot a bow and arrow. Not like this. Never like this!

Her gaze lowered to his upper arms. They were thick, flexing muscular limbs capable of sweeping her off her feet at a moment’s whim. And oh, she wanted to be his Matilda. She wanted him to be her Theodore.

Bother. Matilda and Theodore were Horace Walpole’s creations. She and Markwick lived in the real world. She inhaled a breath of frigid, moist, salty air.

Admit the truth, you silly girl. Markwick triggered breathless exhilaration and the unbridled beat fluttering within her breast, not the Black Regent. For her, there had always only been the Earl of Markwick.

About the Author:

National best-selling historical romance author Katherine Bone has been passionate about history since she had the opportunity to travel to various Army bases, castles, battlegrounds, and cathedrals as an Army brat turned officer’s wife. Who knew that an Army wife’s passion for romance novels would lead to pirates? Certainly not her rogue, whose Alma Mater’s adage is “Go Army. Beat Navy!” Now enjoying the best of both worlds, Katherine lives with her rogue in the south where she writes about rogues, rebels, and rakes—aka pirates, lords, captains, duty, honor, and country—and the happily-ever-afters that every alpha male and damsel deserve.

Ports of Call:

Website, Facebook- Official Fan Page, Twitter, Amazon Author Page, Goodreads

Thank you for allowing me to share one of my all-time FAVorite holiday recipes with you and your readers, Lady Linda. I wish you all a very tasty and hearty holiday season!

Blessings,

Katherine

Sept. 19 is the annual Talk Like a Pirate Day, so prepare to be boarded, or at least to hear Arrr! and Avast Me Hearties! and other pirate sayings.

Eighteenth century pirates now seem like colorful, fun-loving blokes, but historically speaking, the facts are much more serious. So I’m posting an article I wrote on the subject. And if you’re interested in my pirate romance, check out Marooned.

Treacherous Beauty: Piracy in the Bahamas, by Lyndi Lamont

No one can dispute the tropical beauty of the Bahama Islands, but the early history of the islands is filled with danger and treachery.

In 1492 the islands were discovered by Christopher Columbus who claimed them for Spain. Later Spaniards enslaved the native Lucayan people and transported them to work the gold and silver mines in Cuba and Hispaniola.

By the time the British arrived in the late 1670’s, the islands were no longer inhabited. A group of colonists settled on the island of Eleuthera, and a few moved on to New Providence, but most of the islands were left unsettled and provided a haven for pirates and privateers. The islands were close to the major trade routes and New Providence Island had a natural harbor that afforded a safe anchorage in which to hide. With its shallow waters and over 700 islands, the Bahamas provided a perfect environment for pirates to maneuver. Many hid their plunder in the islands’ limestone caverns.

Grand Bahama was considered perilous because of the reefs surrounding it. Pirates would chase merchant ships into the shallows where they foundered on the reefs and were easily plundered. In fact, “wrecking” remained a local occupation for some time. The inhabitants placed a lantern to lure ships close to shore so they could scavenge its cargo.

The resort city of Nassau, on New Providence Island, became notorious as a pirate haven. By 1710 the harbor was filled with ships, some of them rotting hulks that were destroyed after being emptied of their cargo. Contemporary accounts describe it as a ramshackle shanty town with no permanent buildings, just a dilapidated fort, a few wood huts, and a disreputable tent city where pirates could gamble away their plunder, get drunk, or get laid.

The islands were home to famous pirates such as Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard, Calico Jack Rackham, and the infamous female pirates Anne Bonny and Mary Read, who were members of his crew.

Blackbeard’s legend lives on as the most ferocious of pirates. A tall man, he had wild eyes, long, matted black hair and a matching beard which he braided. Before battle, he twisted pieces of fuse into his hair and lit them. With his face surrounded by smoke he was a fearsome sight. Teach was chosen as magistrate of what the pirates called their Privateers’ Republic, but in 1718 the British government sent Royal Governor Woodes Rogers, a former privateer, to the islands to end piracy in the Bahamas. Blackbeard was at sea at the time, so he made the Carolinas his main base until his death in November 1718 at the hands of the British navy. The leader of the British expedition, First Lieutenant Robert Maynard, later said that Blackbeard didn’t fall until he’d received at least five gunshots and twenty sword wounds. Blackbeard’s head was severed, though whether it happened during battle or afterward is not clear, and hung from the bowsprit of Maynard’s sloop to prove that the feared pirate was truly dead.

Calico Jack and Anne Bonny met in New Providence where he persuaded her to don men’s clothing and join him on his ship. (Women were banned from most pirate ships, hence the disguise.) Mary Read, who also dressed as a man, was on board, too. The two women became friends and were known to be fierce fighters. When Woodes Rogers’ men attacked Rackham’s ship in 1720, most of the crew were drunk, except for the two women who fought bravely. The entire crew was captured, tried in Jamaica and sentenced to death. Jack was hanged but the two women “pleaded their bellies”. Because of their pregnancies, the women were not sentenced to death. Mary died in jail of fever before giving birth. Anne’s fate is unknown, but there are rumors that she was eventually released and returned to her home in the Carolinas.

Woodes Rogers was successful in his attempt to end piracy in the Bahamas. In fact, immediately upon his arrival, he was met by a large group of pirates eager to swear loyalty to the crown in exchange for a pardon. Rogers eventually pardoned about 600 pirates. The hard cases like Calico Jack and Blackbeard were chased down and brought to justice.

By 1720 the Golden Age of Piracy was coming to an end. But like the beauty of the islands, tales of the daring pirates live on in legend.

Save

Linda McLaughlin/Lyndi Lamont

Romance author

Tag Archives: pirates

#Holiday Romance & #Recipe with Lady @KatherineBone

Ahoy! It’s Talk Like a Pirate Day!