Before Anne Bonney vanished from history in 1721, she had far outlived the foreboding, prophetic words of Gillah, the cook in her well-to-do Charles Town family. Forsaking her mother's desire to see her settle and marry into the polite, patterned world of South Carolina's colonial society, Anne Bonney chose instead to live her life on the high seas with pirates, thriving on the salt air and the lure of chase and plunder.

From the moment she is swept into a wild affair with the prosperous, villainous pirate Captain Hornigold, Anne's insatiable appetite for inherent lawlessness plunges her fatefully into the world of men, thirsting for reckless adventure and lustful, passionate love.

Dressing in seamen's clothe to keep her sex a secret from her pirate mates, Anne never once looks back to the safe, secure world she leaves behind. With headstrong impulsiveness and high romance, she rides the seas from the Caribbean to the New England coast, meeting up with the legendary Stede Bonnet and Ned Teach, better known as Blackbeard. As Anne fights to retain supremacy over the crew she bravely commands, shrugging off the ever-present risk of death, she becomes one of history's rowdiest, most colorful, and most unforgettable heroines.