The Determined

A groundbreaking novel of historical fiction based on the real experiences of two of the Golden Age of Pirates' most infamous women, Anne Bonny and Mary Read, who dared to subvert the rules and gender roles of their time.
1721, Spanish Town, Jamaica. Captured, convicted, and pregnant, 23-year-old Anne Bonny faces the gallows. When writer Captain Charles Johnson enters the garrison, she strikes a deal: she'll tell this opportunistic fool her story if he sends a doctor to her friend, Mary Read, who's battling prison fever.
Prior to their arrest, life at sea had offered Anne and Mary freedom that few women knew. Anne, born into scandal in Ireland, seeks home and elusive safety in South Carolina. Discovering the opposite, she makes a bitter bargain for emergency passage to the Bahamas.
Across the Atlantic in England, Mary confronts her own limitations as an illegitimate daughter. She sneaks into a merchant crew, disguised as a cabin boy. But when war sends Mary into the cavalry, she meets a challenge even she might not rival.
When their paths collide in Nassau, a notorious "pirate den," Anne and Mary find kinship aboard the Revenge-the fastest ship in the Caribbean. With the governor out for blood, every raid brings more risk. From the high seas to the depths of a Jamaican prison, Anne and Mary must navigate impossible choices, each determined to taste freedom again.

Rachel Rueckert is an award-winning writer, editor, and teacher who holds an MFA from Columbia University and an M.Ed. from Boston University. On her first visit to Provincetown, Massachusetts, she learned about the true story of Anne Bonny, Mary Read and Samuel Bellamy and was hooked, returning to Cape Cod again and again over the years as she researched her novels If the Tide Turns and The Determined. She splits her time between Salt Lake City and Cambridge, Massachusetts and can be found online at RachelRueckert.com or on Instagram and Tiktok @rachelrueckert.