The Pirate Queen

I have met the most incredible woman.

It's all right, my wife isn't jealous. After all, Grace O'Malley has been dead for over four hundred years now. I, like many others over the past twenty or so years am just getting acquainted with her.

Grace O'Malley - known as Granuaile in her native Ireland - was a famous leader in the 16th century. Irish history has all but erased her memory because she dared to do things that civilized women just weren't supposed to do. Things like running a thriving shipping business, managing a Gaelic fiefdom. Oh, yes, and that piracy on the high seas thing.

Ironically, most of the information we have about Grace comes from accounts recorded by her rivals in England, which was in the process of reconquering Ireland during her lifetime. English state papers speak of her notoriety, her boldness, and preserved a detailed question-and-answer correspondence between the Pirate Queen O'Malley and the English monarch, Queen Elizabeth I. These queens later met face-to-face in London to try and settle the desperate situation Grace found herself in because of the English governor, Richard Bingham.

My interest in the pirate queen began when I started planning the third book in my Molly O'Malley trilogy. Wouldn't it be great if Molly, the twelve-year-old heroine who rescues dragons and befriends leprechauns during her vacations, was able to meet Grace O'Malley in person? Imagine what they might learn from each other!

Readers will get just that opportunity in July 2010 when Molly O'Malley and the Pirate Queen is published by Buried Treasure Publishing. There is much adventure, with sailing on a war galley, plots and attacks by the English, friends new and old, and a touch of time traveling.

While you're waiting, now would be a good time to read the first two books in the trilogy. Things have a tendency to come full circle, you know!

The Molly O'Malley Trilogy:
Molly O'Malley and the Leprechaun
Molly O'Malley: Rise of the Changeling
Molly O'Malley and the Pirate Queen