If you want backwards sex worker shaming, this is the book for you. The "worst" characters aren't the pirates that kidnap a ton of women to force into marriage and keep on a deserted island. Oh no. The "worst" character in the entire book is a prostitute who enjoys her job. Like, okay. Fuck purity culture.

I had several false starts with this book. Mostly because I hate reformers and self-righteous characters and it seemed as if the female lead was both! Then in addition, it was a captivity narrative. *eyerolls* Thankfully, the story turned much better and more interesting than I expected.

I was a little worried that this was going to be super cheesy, but it wasn't. I really enjoyed this. It was charming and the characters were wonderful. I am definitely looking forward to reading the next book!

I skimmed through this book (10/8/21) to get the steam stats. I still love so much about it. It's absurd, but the hero has so much that I love. He's arrogant, and cocky, and gets what he wants, but the heroine teaches him to be gentle. I still love it. I think I should boost my rating to 5 stars. There's been books I've read lately that I rated higher than this that I didn't like as much.

Locations of kisses/sex scenes

Spoiler

Pg 87 – first kiss (definitely a bit of dubcon happening here)
Pg 138 – kisses (again, dubcon), that lead to breast play and fingering for her but they get interrupted before orgasm
Pg 179 – fingering orgasm for her
Pg 238 – kisses, missionary sex (virginity loss for her)
Pg 288 – oral for her (orgasm) followed by missionary
Pg 371 total pages

(Original review August 2018:)

This book was so ridiculous but I kinda loved it!

A very satisfying read!

Sara does not quite fit in, she is neither a noble nor a commoner and she spends most of her time trying to help people. In one such effort, she joins a ship full of convict women on their way to Australia to spend their sentences, determined to see firsthand the conditions they are kept under on the journey and help them as much as she can.

Gideon is an infamous pirate who targets mostly English noblemen, but has a different target in mind when he captures the convict ship than wealth. He and his crew plan to retire and built their own little piece of paradise in a remote island. Since there cannot be a paradise with men as its only inhabitants, the men set out to find wives, only to find it harder than expected. The arrival of the convict ship at the town they're anchored seems like the perfect solution to their problem and so they "free" the women by abducting them.

Sara and Gideon are good together, unwilling to let the other walk all over them and constantly challenging one another. The attraction they feel complicates their plans and despite their struggles, they can't seem to stay away from one another. They make each other better and despite their hangups they fall in love.

There are a couple of scenes centered on secondary characters that help to give the story and the characters depth. The chain of events unfolding is realistic and if one of them hadn't happened then the story would have been entirely different and both the heroes realize that by the end of the book.

Looking forward to Jordan's story next!

Oh my Gideon!

I loved this book so much! It was a really fast and nice read and I enjoyed it from beginning to end. I loved all the characters, especially Gideon (our super sexy captain), Sara and Silas. I even ended liking (kinda) Queenie!

The story isn't that much original, to be honest. It's about a pirates' crew that wants to leave piracy behind and get... Wives! So when they get to know about Chastity, a ship full of women. Captain Horn, aka Lord Pirate, has the idea of taking them all to the island he pretends to turn into their own, unknown paradise.

The characters... Finally main characters I love! Sara is a good hearted woman, caring, daring when the opportunity comes around and smart. She's not the typical damsel in distress, nor a weak woman asking for help. And Gideon Horn isn't the a*hole you'd expect to be. He's intelligent and he has a soft spot. He's protective and loyal, not the cruel human being other people claim him to be.

So, if you like Romance and Historical fiction, I recommend you to pick this book! The writing is indeed good (though there are a few words repeated overall), the story is sweet and also steamy (oh yum, sexy scenes ahead!) and the characters are very likeable c:

One of the best pirate love stories ever!

You’re going to be seeing a few of these types of books pop up for the next couple of months. I’m reading them for research. Truly. For style and whatnot. And let me tell you, it’s rather difficult. Thank god all of these books came from PaperBackSwap so I rightly paid nothing for them.

So the reason I’m reading these pirate romance novels is because I want to see how they’re set up, what kind of plot elements are involved, what the characters are like, how it ends, that whole shebang. And I’m reading these books AFTER I’ve done a few months’ worth of genuine pirate research. I took out fat encyclopedias from the library and everything. So going from realism to . . . fantasy is jarring. Especially when the fantasy is so . . . absurd. I don’t normally read bodice rippers anyway so this is double duty newness to me. It’s a big adjustment.

Gideon is a hardened pirate who succeeds in kidnapping a bunch of women from a convict ship in order to force them to be brides for his pirate crew because they want to settle down on a spot of land aptly named Atlantis and give up pirating for good. After I finished gagging I had to contend with my laughing and then after that was done I had to struggle through the rest of the book. I understand a lot of these books are outlandish by their very nature which goes against my need for realism in books. But just coming off of all that research I was just scoffing. I couldn’t help it.

It doesn’t help that Gideon gets a little coochie-coo with the children that came with some of the convict women and let’s them play with his toes and whatnot that I just couldn’t get on board with. That was a pretty big departure from his character, even factoring in how he was with Sara and it really took me out of the story.
And then we have Sara. Expect the push and pull because of PROPRIETY except when orgasms come into play and then screw propriety. Of course poor decisions are made and instigating is done because she wouldn’t be a stubborn dame without it all. I do have to give her credit, though. Her first priority is always protecting the women she’s charged herself with and she really doesn’t waiver on that at all. I can respect her for that.
I do have to say I liked Louisa’s and the cook’s (whose name escapes me) relationship better than anything. It was sad and endearing and it broke my heart and then stitched the pieces back together again. I would have MUCH preferred those two be the focus of the story but, you know, they’re far too NORMAL for that. The male love interest is required to be a chiseled sex god and the woman has to be a hard-nosed noble that swings back and forth on her feelings like a tennis ball.

The sex was good. Nice and steamy and WRONG but GOOD and it poked and prodded at Sara in all the right places (figuratively and literally). She came out of her shell (also figuratively and literally) and opened herself up to a world of pleasure that was always taught to be wrong and forbidden and evil. Orgasms are good. She knows this now. Although in reality her pleasure would have come with a serving of the clap and a side salad of herpes because Gideon most certainly WASN’T a virgin but that’s neither here nor there. Fantasy, remember. It can’t bother itself with communicable diseases.

It was rough getting through THE PIRATE LORD. I just found the plot overtly ridiculous and I really wasn’t connecting with Gideon or Sara much at all. The teasing and sex helped a lot but the inane plot really hurt it for me. The sugary sweet ending was off-putting as well. It was just so . . . happy and the Morticia Addams in me sneered at that. There wasn’t enough for me to latch on to in this book. I could’t care about it enough.

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