The Ballad of Jacquotte Delahaye

Packed full of action, excitement, peril and romance on the high seas, this is the sapphic pirate book of my dreams — SARAH UNDERWOOD, author of Lies We Sing to the Sea

Thrilling, heart-pounding adventure meets thoughtful feminist history... a rare and special tale — VAISHNAVI PATEL, author of Kaikeyi

1656, Saint-Domingue. In the dark confines of a cell, a prisoner is waiting. Soon the hangman will call her name. Jacquotte Delahaye. A name which has struck fear into even the mightiest of empires. For Jacquotte is no ordinary prisoner: she is a pirate.

Fierce. Legendary. Deadly.

As the hangman prepares the noose, Jacquotte's story is told, charting her humble origins from the island of Hispaniola to the deck of a fearsome pirate ship. There, against all odds, she swiftly rises through the ranks, travelling across the Caribbean, facing duels across land and sea, and savouring tender moments stolen in the night.

With the sun rising, can Jacquotte fight her way to freedom and find the woman she loves? Or will she die a legend?

Following one of the few purported female pirates to sail the Caribbean in the seventeenth century, this is a sweeping and dazzling tale of adventure and buccaneering — and the forbidden love story that will shape the course of history.