Wayward Voyage, Guest Post by Anna M Holmes

Anne is a headstrong young girl growing up in the frontier colony of Carolina in the early eighteenth century. With the death of her mother, and others she holds dear, Anne discovers that life is uncertain, so best live it to the full. She rejects the confines of conventional society and runs away to sea, finding herself in The Bahamas, which has become a nest for pirates plaguing the West Indies. Increasingly dissatisfied with her life, Anne meets a charismatic former pirate, John ‘Calico Jack’ Rackham, and persuades him to take up pirating again, and she won’t be left onshore. The Golden Age of Piracy is a period when frontiers were being explored and boundaries pushed. Wayward Voyage creates a vivid and gritty picture of colonial life in the Americas and at sea.

Guest Post: Anna’s Approach to research

Part of the pleasure in creating the world of Wayward Voyage was the research entailed: political and colonial history; social history; seafaring in the age of sail; dress; diet; and much more. I wanted to absorb it and allow my characters to live in their world without needing to point out what would be obvious to them. One of my beta readers wrote Anna’s research is like a good corset – underpinning the story and holding everything in place without the reader noticing. I hope others think the same. Developing characters was great fun too. When they are truly alive in my mind, they behave like actors improvising a scene in the pretend theatre I have created.

When I first became interested in the lives of Anne Bonny and Mary Read, Pirates of the Caribbean had not appeared on screen and the swashbuckling series Black Sails on Netflix was not a thing (Netflix wasn’t a thing!). With few pirate books published one caught my attention: The General History of Pirates by Captain Charles Johnson (possibly Daniel Defoe’s pseudonym). This was first published in 1724 so contemporaneous with the so-called Golden Age of Piracy. I ordered it from the British Library Stacks and when it came it was an ancient crumbling tome. Now the book is widely available, and one click on a retailer’s order will bring this up and so many other books about pirates. And I read loads: pirates, maritime and colonial history.

The National Archives in Southwest London houses documents relating to military and government history. Here I read reports dealing with overseas colonies – and read Woodes Rogers letters appealing to that committee when he served as Governor in The Bahamas. The excitement of picking up a box you have ordered, opening it, sifting through documents, handling a letter from so long ago, then reading Roger’s loopy elegant handwriting… This gave excellent insight into the man and I’ve included quotes of his real letters in my story.

Then there was the pirates’ trial report. I can remember my hands shaking as I handled this record written in 1721. In my book many of the pirates in Jack Rackham’s crew are named after real pirates who sailed with him.

I like to experience things for myself, so not all research was with my nose buried in books.

I spent a memorable week as voyage crew sailing in the Canary Islands on the tall ship, the Lord Nelson, operated by the Jubilee Sailing Trust. I learnt how to handle ropes and went aloft to take down or raise sails. I use that experience of feeling jelly-legged in my book when Anne first goes aloft.

In 2019 I visited the Carolinas. I had the Cormac’s rice plantation situated off the Wando River, but that river, being nearer the sea, was too salty for rice crops, so I moved Anne’s family location to a creek off the Ashley River. For the rest, I hope my research stacks up, and readers can go with the flow. It is the story that matters, and I want to carry readers forward turning the pages, confident in the world I have created.

If you enjoy reading Wayward Voyage, I would love you to leave a review on the retailer’s website and recommend to friends. Bon voyage and happy reading.

Amazon US: https://www.amazon.com/Wayward-Voyage-Anna-M-Holmes/dp/1913551725/
Amazon UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Wayward-Voyage-Anna-M-Holmes-ebook/dp/B093TJMNPX

Meet Anna M. Holmes

Stories with big themes written as page-turners are Anna M Holmes’s speciality. She loves research, exploring and building worlds and complex characters. Wayward Voyage – inspired by pirates, Anne Bonny and Mary Read – was her debut novel followed by eco-thriller, Blind Eye, and contemporary fiction, The Find. She’s expecting to publish her latest historical fiction Footlights On A New World in 2024. This story calls on her knowledge of ballet history Initially Anna worked as a radio journalist before a career in arts management working with UK Arts Councils and as a creative dance and theatre producer. Writing, reading, dance, and yoga shape her life. Originally from New Zealand Anna lives in South-West London. To find out more about Anna and Wayward Voyage visit her website. There are links to where to buy, opening chapters, book club topics, reviews and more. She invites readers to subscribe to her newsletter.