Product Description

Trapped in the dreary Angels Academy for Young Maidens by her tyrant father, 17-year-old Artemesia Blastside (Art to her friends) dreams of the seafaring life she once led with her mother, a notorious pirate, killed six years before by an untimely cannonblast.



Unaware that her memories of glamorous characters and high adventure are not what they seem, she seizes her chance to escape. Now she’s off in search of her mother’s old crew, her heart set on the High Seas, the Blue Indies of the Caribbean, and on treasure Beyond the Dreams of Avarice. Careering through the haunts of highwaymen, pirates and smugglers Art sweeps a motley and unwilling crew into the treasure hunt of all time, and does her best to win her mother’s crown as the feared and famous PIRATICA. (20040501)

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #202962 in Books
• Published on: 2004-08-12
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 384 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Presented most handsomely by the notorious author Tanith Lee, Piratica is her daring tale of a single-girl's adventure upon the high seas and is most definitely not what it says it is on the tin--this is a novel of great invention and bountiful surprises.

Taking place in a parallel world in the year Seventeen-Twelvety (approximately 1802) this almost historical adventure begins with 16-year-old Miss Artemesia Fitz-Willoughby Weatherhouse, or Art for short, coming to her senses in her select but dreary prison that is the Angels Academy for Young Ladies. She longs for the life her deceased mother Molly led and is determined to break out and rebel against her uneasy aristocratic father. Molly Faith was a notorious female pirate who coined and earned the feared nickname Piratica.

Taking a rare chance to escape her educational shackles, Art makes for Ports Mouth and the unruly inn where her mother's old shipmates congregate to drown their sorrows. Taking on her mother's mantle and battle cry--Art urges them to resurrect their former seafaring career of blaggardry and to strike out for further fame and infamy. It is at this juncture that Art learns a fearful and totally jaw-dropping truth about her infamous mother's past life. It's a twist so unexpectedly twisty that it may well be the twistiest turn a story has ever embarked upon.

This is a novel about which the reader cannot help but feel an enormous sense of fun and warmth. The author's editorial tongue is firmly in cheek throughout, but its rip-roaring spirited and pleasurable nevertheless. Suitable for readers aged 12 and over. --John McLay

The Bookseller
A hilarious romp.

Review
A glorious roustabout of a tale, full of yummy set pieces and terrific adventures, unbelievable in a most satisfying way. The language is rip-roaring or glides like a seagull, as needed. And the thrilling dénouement is romantic as heck. (Kirkus Review: Starred )

'a rollicking read. Road adventure, sea voyage and treasure hunt in one.' (Irish Times )

A hilarious romp. (The Bookseller )

On recent evidence, pirate stories look like being the next big thing. If so, may they all be as much fun as this one, by the Cat's Elbows! (Jan Mark, The Guardian )

'... a wonderfully rumbustious fantasy that is as clever as it is entertaining.' (The Independent )

Tanith Lee restores one's faith in fiction as the expression of imagination and original thought. (The Guardian )

'Swashbuckling for the over-10s' (The Daily Telegraph )

'A twisting, exciting and daring adventure'

(Newcastle Upon Tyne Evening Chronicle )

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Customer Reviews

Vivid, lush, filmic, funny
I got this book for my 9 year old daughter. She just couldn't get into it. On the other hand, I - and all of my friends on whom I've forced it - have loved it. I read it on a plane and kept having to apologise to the person sitting next to me because I was laughing so much. Much of humour lies in the way that Lee plays with genre and absurdity. The language is gloriously rich, too - although I found that if you try to read it aloud, it lacks rhythm and loses some of its magic. The prose is wonderfully visual, and the overall effect is very filmic - partly because our images of pirates are so rooted in swashbuckling movies, and partly because Lee is consciously drawing on those images. I think it flags a little towards the end, and the mystery about Mr Phoenix turns out to be a little prosaic when All Is Revealed, but the ending is just as it should be.

By the Whale's Knitting, this is brilliant
No, I'm not a kid. Why should kids have all the fun? This is the best novel I have read all year - and I spent a lot of the year judging an adult litfic competition. I didn't come across anything remotely as readable or as moving. It is funny, and rollicking, and sometimes farcical - nowhere more than in an execution scene which is a homage to Cat Ballou. But it's also a serious novel about truth and fiction and the blurred boundary between the two. "The truth" is not always the same as "what really happened", as Art finds. She keeps thinking she's got to the bottom of her mother's story but she doesn't, not until very near the end.

I wanted books like this, and heroines like this, when I was young.

A real treasure!
This is an intriguing and well-crafted book, neatly divided into three acts, each divided into three parts which are each sub-divided into three chapters. The setting is a world similar to our own but with some subtle differences, not least of which is that the majority of pirate captains and highwaymen appear to be young girls!

The story begins with the 16 year-old heroine, Artemisia or Art for short, suddenly recovering lost memories of her childhood; a childhood spent at sea with her mother, pirate captain Molly Faith. She leaves her prim, suffocating girls' school behind and sets off to find her mother's old crew and embark on an adventure of her own. However, her recently retrieved memories are not quite as reliable as she thinks!

My admiration for this book grew as I read it. For the first three or four chapters (setting scenes, meeting characters) I was only mildly interested, but once Art discovers the truth about her memories, I was hooked. By the end of the second part, I came to regard the characters, (Art, each of the pirates ... even the parrot), with affection, really caring about what happened to them. By the third part, the adventure becomes a real page-turner. I should warn you that the Amazon synopsis bears little resemblance to the book's actual plot; for example, there is NO character called Belladora Fan!

Art isn't simply the standard feisty heroine, but an oddly noble girl, determined to follow her star ... whilst continually bewildered by enigmatic (possibly false) memories of her childhood. Her romantic interest, Felix, is also no stereotype ... and for much of the book it is difficult to understand his true motives for joining the pirates. The book's conclusion is both dramatic and satisfying, holding your attention until the very last page.

There have been several pirate stories published of late ... also the film, 'Pirates of the Caribbean'; however, this is without doubt my favourite. Although more fantastical and less grittily realistic than some books, it cleverly manages to convey a much more convincing flavour of life at sea. The language is a pleasure to read ... and I know I will return to this book in a year or two, and reread it for the writing alone.