Happy publication to Katherine Howe! Her book A True Account is available today and it is a page-turner! Thank you to Henry Holt & Company for the ARC. I so enjoyed reading this. 

From a young age, Hannah Maury was bound out to service a waterfront in Boston in the early 1700s. Now an early teenager, she is forced to flee Boston for her life, and disguises herself as a cabin boy in the crew of the notorious pirate Edward “Ned” Low. There is rumor of buried treasure and Ned is determined to find it. 

Fast forward to 1930, and undergrad Kay Longergan brings Hannah’s found manuscript to professor Marian Beresford and convinces Marian to approach her famous explorer of a father and persuade him, and his expedition society club, to back their trip in search of long-lost pirate treasure.

It took me a minute to settle into Hannah’s story, but once I was in I could not stop reading. It is a wild story full of daring escapes and does not shy away from the violence pirates are known for. I could have read even more of Hannah’s tale, but I enjoyed the juxtaposition of Hannah’s life to Marian’s life and the secrets they both had to hide. No spoilers but the ending was simply wonderful and just what this reader needed.