Joan Druett

This is the first of a series of novels set in the United States Exploring Expedition of 1838. Wiki Coffin is a Pacific Islander partially raised by his father, an American sea captain. Wiki is attached to the expedition as a linguist, due to his facility with Pacific Islands languages.

At the outset, Wiki is waiting for an appointment by a river when he is surprised by someone shooting. He sees a dead woman in a boat, and drags her to shore. When the sheriff arrives, Wiki is the immediate suspect, but is soon cleared. As the expedition departs, the sheriff deputises Wiki to continue the investigation to find out if the woman's killer is on board.

I enjoyed this story. It reminded me of the Aubrey-Maturin novels, only with a murder mystery at its hear. Druett seems to have done her research very well, with none of the clangers you sometimes get in historical fiction. As a mystery, it also worked quite well too, with a few twists and red herrings, and a decidedly original protagonist.… (mehr)

I liked this book, even though it was less about pirates than I had hoped for, and way less about female captains. Still. I remember when the first PotC movie came out and me and my (female) friends became obsessed with the pirate life, saying we wanted to set sail and start slitting throats. A male friend was kind enough to mansplain it to me: "you know that all the women on pirate ships were raped, right?". I wish I could slap him with this book. It's not a big book, it wouldn't hurt him much, but maybe he'd get an infected papercut and be forever deformed.

What I didn't like about this book was the times it didn't really talk about women at sea, but rather women whose husband were at sea and they stayed home. It wasn't really what I wanted. Also, the use of the word "female" as a noun and the casual use of "transvestite" to describe a lot of the women who cross-dressed kinda put me off. But the stories were interesting, and the snide-ish comment by the author were funny, so mostly I enjoyed it.… (mehr)

This book could be subtitled “A Tale of Two Shipwrecks.” It is the true story of two shipwrecks, the Grafton and the Invercauld, on the Auckland Islands near New Zealand in the mid-1860’s. In addition to providing the details of what happened to these crews, it a lesson on the importance of ingenuity, teamwork, and leadership. The author has done extensive research involving the journals of the participants, plant and animal life of the islands, and history of the area, and weaves this information into the narrative. As a warning, it contains graphic descriptions of killing sea lions and other wildlife, which may be disturbing. Recommended to readers of non-fiction, maritime history, and survival stories.… (mehr)