Original Sin
Posted by Jean Roberta | Filed under Book reviews
Title: The Sublime and Spirited Voyage of Original Sin
Author: Colette Moody
Publisher: Bold Strokes Books, 2009
ISBN: 978-1602820548
Rated: 4 Stars
Genre: Swashbuckling Romance
Lesbian pirate stories seem to be enjoying a wave of popularity, and this book is likely to capture a good share of booty from the market. It is an entertaining hybrid of historical flavor, clever repartee from a vintage romantic comedy, and rip-roaring action (think 1940s pirate movie). Some of the banter between major characters suggests the duets in The Pirates of Penzance (nineteenth-century operetta by Gilbert and Sullivan).
The action begins in 1702, when the captain of the pirate ship Original Sin (with a figurehead in the form of a voluptuous Eve holding an apple in outstretched hands) has been wounded in a battle with the Royal Navy off the coast of Florida. Despite the widespread belief that a woman on a ship is bad luck, the pirate captain took his thirteen-year-old daughter Gayle on board when her mother died, and his crew has grown to care about her. When Gayle, now an adult, takes over as acting captain, her men obey her. They follow her orders to go ashore to find a doctor for her father.
So far, Gayle somewhat resembles the real Ann Bonny, who became a pirate in the early eighteenth century through her association with a man named Calico Jack. Eventually, they were joined by Mary Read, a woman who had spent most of her life in men’s clothing, and who had been in the British and Dutch armies. Both women were tried and convicted of piracy in 1721.
There is some evidence that Ann and Mary were lovers, but they did not live long and happy lives together. This novel, as an erotic romance, improves on history by bringing Gayle an unlikely companion: a seamstress, fiancée of a cowardly doctor who let her be taken captive in his place. She has been resigned to marrying a man she doesn’t love (or vice versa). To her surprise, life on a pirate ship, with a charismatic female captain, suits her better.
As in more modern romances, the two women yearn silently for each other for weeks, each misunderstanding each other’s signals. Celia the seamstress hears that Gayle can “wench” as well as her men, but Celia doesn’t want to be treated like a casual plaything. Gayle is well aware that rape is a tradition among pirates, but she is determined not to take any woman who doesn’t want her – so she waits patiently for a sign of desire.
The well brought-up Celia, dressed in a man’s shirt and breeches, picks up some of the vocabulary of the sailors around her. Here she is trying to resist Gayle’s charms, while Gayle is trying to be a gracious host. To quote:
Celia swallowed loudly as the familiar queasiness in her stomach returned. “Shit,” she uttered softly, like a hymn, at the revelation that resistance perhaps wouldn’t be as simple as she had hoped.
Gayle turned and smiled warmly at her.
“Shit,” Celia repeated quietly.
“Feeling better?” Gayle called as she approached her.
“Aye, thank you.”
Both women go through all the stages of a new relationship between an experienced lesbian and one who is just “coming out” to herself, while coping with battles, injury, numerous Bad Guys (other pirates much less ethical than Gayle) and a storm that seems likely to destroy Original Sin, but which brings the lovers together instead.
Given a chance to return home, Celia instead chooses to stay on board for a rescue mission: helping a doctor to rescue his sister, who was captured by pirates while visiting a bordello. Sister Anne turns out to be a lesbian and a rival for Gayle’s attention, while her brother James, who resembles Celia’s spineless fiancé, also wants to win her. When Celia’s father is horrified by the news that his daughter is in the clutches of “Captain Malvern” (whom he believes to be Gayle’s father), he offers to pay another pirate captain to rescue her. The plot heats up to fever pitch.
Between realistically gruesome sword and pistol-fights, the repartee flies like ocean spray. The cutlass duels are as intense as the sex scenes, and in both cases the participants show a remarkable ability to trade insults or sultry suggestions when most human beings would be out of breath.
While rescuing Anne, Gayle is accosted by the pirate who abducted all the women in the bordello. Here she outwits him. To quote:
He laughed malevolently and moved to grope her again, but she seized his wrists. “You’ll get what you want in due time, Captain,” she cooed, challenging him with her gaze. “Lean back and let me touch you. I’ll take you to heaven.”
He relaxed and sat on the bed, and Gayle pushed him onto his back seductively as she reached under her skirt behind her for the hilt of her dagger. She crawled astride him, moving her left hand over his exposed chest. When her face neared his, he wriggled as though he teemed with lust.
She stopped, their mouths only inches apart. “Are you ready for heaven?” she asked, letting her left hand continue down his body to his waist.
“Aye, bring it.”
Before McQueen realized Gayle’s plans, she had sliced his throat so deeply with the dagger in her right hand that his vocal cords were severed. “You’ve been a right bastard, McQueen,” she whispered venomously, their faces still very close. “You may have to give up heaven and settle for hell.”
As Celia discovered on a sensual and emotional level, Gayle is also impossible to resist in a fair or an unfair fight. She defeats one opponent after another, all of whom deserve everything they get. Between real skirmishes, Gayle teaches Celia to use various weapons as they spar on the deck of the ship. Like Gabrielle, apprentice/companion of the Amazon warrior Xena, Celia will eventually need to use her new skills in a fight for her life.
This novel isn’t a sea shanty about the lives of women pirates as they really were, but as they should have been. There is just enough danger and bloodshed to keep the reader concerned, but this book is a romance, not a tragedy, so eventually the complications get resolved, booty is recovered for good, and the love of two good women is blessed by their fathers. This novel would be fun to read aloud to a special someone in bed.
REVIEWED BY JEAN ROBERTA
Kissed By Venus is a web site for the discussion and promotion of lesbian literature. We publish lesbian fiction, articles, book reviews, and interviews.
