Brendan’s Alternate Tagline for The Pirate’s Wife:
She’d rather have been a pirate.
Quick synopsis:
The story of Sarah Kidd, the wife of famous pirate Captain Kidd.
Fun Fact Non-History People Will Like:
William Kidd was Sarah’s third husband, but she was still only in her early 20s when they got married.
Fun Fact for History Nerds:
Sarah was also arrested along with William but would not be executed like him.
My Take on The Pirate’s Wife:
There are lots of problems with pirates. However, the biggest problem for an author is that they tend to leave no records and anything they do leave behind is probably a lie.
Daphne Palmer Geanacopoulos’s The Pirate’s Wife runs into this issue and more. It is a biography of William Kidd’s wife Sarah. Kidd is famous for being a doomed pirate who may have been railroaded but also probably had it coming. Kidd is Sarah’s third husband, and she definitely seems like an interesting person to write a book about.
However, Sarah left little to no actual correspondence in her life. Much of the story needs to come from secondary sources or the author is forced to take her best guess. Geanacopoulos does her best with what she has but it’s just too little to work with. I can see that Geanacopoulos is a good writer in how she adeptly tries to tell a complete story, but this subject just leaves way too many holes to write a full-length non-fiction book.
(This book was provided to me as an advance copy by Netgalley and Harlequin Trade Publishing.)
Verdict:
If this is a subject you are interested in, it’s worth a read. Buy it here!
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