New Book Alert: Ginger Star: A Prequel (Stuck in the Onesies Series Book Three) by Diane McDonough; Gender and Racial Conflicts Surround 18th Jamaica Historical Fiction

 New Book Alert: Ginger Star: A Prequel (Stuck in the Onesies Series Book Three) by Diane McDonough; Gender and Racial Conflicts Surround 18th Jamaica Historical Fiction 

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: It's becoming common for me to review two or more books on the same subject. This year alone I have read books about ballet, books set in 2040 California, books in which characters have the ability of lucid dreaming, and fantasies involving magical creatures and beings from countries other than the United States and  those in Europe. It's still rare however when I read two or more historical fiction by different authors that are set at the exact same time frame and feature the exact same historical figures. In recent years, I remember Mistress Suffragette by Diana Forbes and Gilded Summer (Newport's Gilded Age Series Book One) by Donna Russo Morin being one set and Rhapsody by Mitchell James Kaplan and Lady Be Good: The Life and Times of Dorothy Hale by Pamela Hamilton being another. Well now I have another: the early years of the 18th century Caribbean seen through the words of Katie Crabb's Constellation Trilogy and Diane McDonough's Ginger Star: A Prequel Stuck in the Onesies Book Three.

 Both feature sailors, pirates, the slave trade, and both involve characters questioning and rebelling against the standards of the day. They are so similar, that it really isn't fair to compare them. I am not accusing anyone of plagiarizing, just sometimes ideas strike more than one person at a time. 

There are some interesting aspects that each author focuses on. Both focus on the dehumanization of slavery but they also take different approaches on how others are treated. Crabb also writes about the struggles affecting gay men and lesbians in the 18th century and how they often had to conform to societal standards, exile themselves (in this series' case to the seas), or face imprisonment or death.

She takes some looks at gender roles and the status of women in this time period but it definitely is sidelined for the LGBT perspective.

McDonough however puts her emphasis on race and gender roles. Many slaves and free blacks made communities of their own despite threats from the approaching white slavers and colonials. The book also looks at the roles of women in this Caribbean society and how they also fight for their rights and independence.

The book begins with Amari, a young Ghanaian man in a friendly hunting competition. Unfortunately, he and his friend, Kwasi are kidnapped, taken to a slave ship, and then separated. Amari  is injured and cared for by Ronnie Shepherd, the cabin boy and an indentured servant. The two become friends and Amari learns that Ronnie has been keeping a secret. Ronnie is actually a woman disguised as a boy to escape a troubled abusive home life. When the two reach Jamaican shores, Amari rescues Ronnie from being raped and the two make their escape. They reach an estate where a wealthy woman, Adria, helps them hide and covers for them. Adria invites them to stay on her family's estate, Ginger Star. Unfortunately, she has a secret of her own. She's unmarried and pregnant. 

Since The Constellation Trilogy spends a lot of time at sea, the Reader doesn't really get to explore the beauty of the Jamaican island. McDonough more than makes up for that. Adria’s first description of Jamaica is beyond lovely. McDonough wrote, “Small white caps broke over the reef that was outside the cove. The sea went from royal blue to crystal-clear aqua as it closed in on the shoreline. (Adria’s) gaze landed across the cove on a waterfall that spilled into the sea with fresh water from one of the eight rivers in and near Ocho Rios.” The book also explores the local flora and fauna and the local names for them such as ginger star for heliconia and doctor bird for hummingbird. 

McDounough captures the contradictions of an island of immense beauty and the ugly times which occur there: the buying and selling of human beings, the theft of land and resources by outsiders unwilling to share them with the people who were there first, and the fact that those in authority are so willfully corrupt and ignorant to what’s happening around them that the only way to uphold true justice and liberty is to break the law and become a pirate.

McDonough creates some memorable characters who live on the different sides of the socioeconomic and racial scale that inhabit her settings and makes them real. They are more than just microcosms of their society but individuals that live within it. 

The four strongest and best characters in this book are Amari, Ronnie, Adria, and another character whom I will mention later. After he escapes. Amari joins the Maroon community of escaped slaves and indigenous Tainos. They fight against colonists and rebel against the white government that had been forced upon the island. Amari later marries, adopts a son, and becomes a leader of his community. Because he befriended Ronnie and Adria, he is able to be a bridge between the white and indigenous and black communities of the island and to achieve diplomacy in the Maroons’ desire for recognition and independence. Amari still fights against the slavers and colonists when he has to, but he is also willing to work with and talk to his white friends to encourage cooperation. Also, during this time, the Maroon community grows with more slaves leaving plantations to live lives of freedom in which they can declare their own agencies. 

Adria is on the side of those white colonists and she shows kindness and charity towards those around her, white, black, and indigenous. She is mostly sheltered and kept in a very restricted upper class home where she is expected to marry, have children, and lead the servants and household. Adria  is in a more vulnerable position than Ronnie or Amari and is unable to physically fight, but her strength is in her gentleness and generous spirit. One of her greatest moments occurs long after she gives birth and she is separated from her child. When she learns the whereabouts of her child, the Reader expects her to strike out angrily and accuse those around her of kidnapping them, even kidnapping the child herself. Instead she sees the little one is happy and well cared for. Even though she admits that she gave birth, the little one’s real parents are the ones who raised them. 

Ronnie is another one in a peculiar position that puts her between worlds. Even though she is a woman, she spent time working on ships so can see the pirate’s perspective. She reverts back to her female identity, works in a store and sees other women taking charge of their own destiny. As a former indentured servant, she saw first hand the abhorrent treatment that black slaves suffered and speaks against it even after she enters a romance with a white plantation owner. She retains her friendship with Amari and Adria and helps stand against the institution of slavery. She has survived on her own for a long time, so is very strong willed and knows her own mind.

As I mentioned this book is set during almost the exact same time span as The Constellation Trilogy and many of the historical real life figures appear in both, one in particular. While she is glimpsed very briefly in Sailing by Carina’s Star, she is an important figure in Ginger Star and takes part in the plot in a huge way. She is Anne Bonney, one of the few female pirates during the Golden Age of Piracy. In Ginger Star, she is a former friend of Ronnie’s who  encouraged the younger woman to follow her own path of donning men’s clothing and taking to the seas. 

One of the most interesting things about Bonney’s appearance in Ginger Star is that this book offers a few theories as to why she disappeared from history. In reality, her husband Calico Jack Rackham was executed and she was scheduled to be executed as well, but she claimed pregnancy so she was released. That was the last known record of her, no one knows where she went upon her escape, if she escaped, or when and where she died. Ginger Star cleverly fills those gaps by giving Bonney a more decisive end to her story while still being true to her crafty, adventurous, fighting spirit.

Ginger Star is a very different book from The Constellation Trilogy even though it covers the same time period. It captures great beauty in setting, ugliness in inhumanity, and courage and spirit in the various individuals that dwelled in that time and place. 

New Book Alert: Sailing by Carina's Star (The Constellation Trilogy Book 2) by Katie Crabb; Dramatic Confrontations Abound as Family and Loyalty Lines Are Redrawn

 

New Book Alert: Sailing by Carina's Star (The Constellation Trilogy Book 2) by Katie Crabb; Dramatic Confrontations Abound as Family and Loyalty Lines Are Redrawn

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: The previous volume of Katie Crabb's Constellation Trilogy, Sailing by Orion's Star, ended with Rene Delacroix, a wealthy Captain's white son, Frantz Seymour, the biracial son of Captain Delacroix's deceased first mate, and Auden Carlyle, Rene and Frantz's gambler friend ran away from their Jamaican homes of abuse and slavery and joined the pirate crew of Ajani Danso, AKA, Robin Hood The Merciful. Nicholas Jerome, Captain Delacroix's current first mate and surrogate son, angrily vowed that he would find them no matter how long it took.

The second volume, Sailing by Carina's Star, continues to redefine the terms of family and friends and puts the characters in situations that change and mature them.

In this volume,Jerome, now a Lieutenant in the English Royal Navy, is making a name for himself as a pirate catcher. However, one crew seems to slip from his grasp. A reunion with his long estranged Romany mother, Tiena, does not soften Jerome. In fact, it only makes him more determined to find Rene and the others. He owes it to Michel Delacroix, now Commodore of the East India Company, a man that Jerome considers his father.

Meanwhile, Danso's crew has grown. Besides Abeni, his female quartermaster and best friend, Rene, Frantz, and Auden, he also has Abeni's daughter Flora, Danso's nephew Jahni, and new crew members, Chema Guerra, Elliot Roux, Benoit Martel, Marc Favreau, and Eli Matos. Rene, Frantz, and Auden have become experienced sailors, so much so that rumors spread about the three young pirates, particularly a fair haired one on Robin Hood's crew. Danso's crew and legend grows so much that when he gets a new ship, the Saiph to accompany his Misericorde, the vote is unanimous to make Rene the consort captain, Frantz the sailing master, and Auden as quartermaster. In fact, Rene gains quite a reputation of his own and names such as Robin Hood's Devil, The Red Devil, Lucifer, and (his favorite) The Morning Star.

This book sees a huge age lift for many of the young characters. Jerome and the boys ended the previous book in their late twenties and mid teens respectively. In this volume Jerome is approaching forty and the young men are now in their twenties. With that aging comes great change and maturity and the desire to cling to old values or completely break away from them. 

After Delacroix and Jerome have been promoted, they have moved away from personally involving themselves in the slave trade, though still condoning it. One hopes that their final encounter with Danso, Abeni, and particularly Rene and Frantz shook them up enough to open up some humanity in them, but realistically they are more concerned with catching pirates and have one major project at a time to work on. 

In fact, Jerome has regressed considerably in character. In the previous book, he was determined to follow Delacroix’s orders and maintain what he considered law and order on the high seas; however he still showed glimpses of being a good person at heart. He spent time teaching Rene about sword fighting and telling sea stories to him and Frantz. He treated Delacroix like the father that he desperately needed. He sometimes fought inward battles between what he personally believed and what his orders were, with orders always coming first.  Now those flashes of humanity are gone.

Instead the years of regimentation, rules, and regulations have taken their toll turning Jerome into an unremorseful, bigoted, hateful, tool of the British Navy. When he reunites with his mother, instead of having a tearful embrace (like Frantz does when he reunites with his missing mother, Chantal), he yells at her and turns her away. He thinks of her as a stain on his reputation (because he believes that if word gets out that he’s half-Romany, he would be removed from his position at the very least and imprisoned at the very worst). Even though there is brief talk of him getting married, Jerome is a Navy man through and through. While he is still a loyal surrogate son to Delacroix, his ambitions and his remorseless behavior have made him completely monstrous and no longer identifiable.

Rene, Danso, and the other pirates on the other hand have become stronger in terms of character and their relationships with each other. Besides being a brave and effective leader who has earned the respect of his crew, Danso has become a father figure to his men and women. He worries when the younger members are on their own missions and is protective of them. He doesn’t have children of his own, but he treats Rene, Frantz, Auden. Jahni, and Flora like his own. 

He also encourages them and knows that he can’t keep them sheltered forever which is why he lets them crew the Saiph because he trusts them. Unlike Delacroix who was well meaning but wanted to keep Rene sheltered, Danso knows that the young people in his care will face the world on their own and he might as well prepare them for it. 

Abeni also comes into her own, becoming a fierce and loyal first mate. In a couple of chapters, Danso becomes incapacitated and unable to captain. Abeni has to fill in and does so becoming proactive and assertive instead of the more diplomatic Danso. She also obtains a love interest in the patient and kind, Eli. 

The other pirates also become stronger in various pages as a family, crew, and individual characters. Their circle expands to include many other pirates and civilians who are on their side. Real life characters like Edward “Blackbeard” Teach, Sam Bellamy, Anne Bonney, Mary Read, and “Calico '' Jack Rackham encounter the Misericorde crew giving their “arrs” of approval. Danso and Abeni’s former crewmates, lovers Collins and Robins, help them and later they return the favor. After Jerome rejects his mother, Tiena, the Misericorde gang not only accept her but introduce her to Frantz’s mother, Chantal, who hires her to work with her. Even Rene’s mother, Astra Delacroix remains where she is in her stately home in Kingston but remembers how she helped the boys escape to the Misericorde. She states to her husband and her father that she would rather the boys remain pirates than return to a life of imprisonment for Frantz and misery for Rene.

Similar to Fearghus Academy: Precarious Gems, one of the ways to show the characters’ developing maturity is to explore their romantic interests and pair them up. Besides Abeni and Eli, new pirates  Eliot and Benoit become a couple, as do Flora and Auden. While Rene and Frantz are best friends, their previous relationship was clearly one of deep emotion and platonic pairing. This is finally the volume where they confess their love for each other and become an out and proud couple that men like their fathers were afraid to become. The feeling from the Reader is less “I knew it” than a relieved “Finally!” when the duo confess their love. 

Of the characters, Rene is the most developed. In the first volume, he was a wide eyed kid drawn by the adventure of the high seas and piracy. He left Jamaica as a stand against the slavery institution that his grandfather, father, and Jerome represent. His humanity and his love for Frantz were more important than that. 

In the second volume, he is less wide eyed and innocent. He is someone who has killed to defend his crew and is unafraid to do so again. Thanks to Jerome’s teaching, he is quite the swordsman (as Frantz is aces with firing guns), and will fight with a vengeful fury. In fact his fair hair, red coat, and angry fighting style are what earned him the nicknames of the “Red Devil” and “Lucifer the Morning Star.” (Because he “looks like Satan before the Fall and fights like him after” legends say). He takes the insults that his grandfather gave him like “monster” and “devil” and turns them around to take pride in them as someone who will fight like a demon for those he cares about.

 One mark of Rene's maturity is his ambivalence about accepting the captaincy. Ever since he was a boy he and Frantz shared the dream of Rene becoming captain of a ship and Frantz being his navigator. While he proves himself as a great sailor and teammate to Danso and the rest of the crew, he is at first reluctant to take the consort captaincy. He doesn’t dodge the possibility of leadership, in fact takes the lead in small groups. But the offer of becoming a captain awakens not only his old ambitions but memories of the abuse inflicted from his grandfather and the indifference from his father. He is afraid of becoming like them. It takes Frantz’s declaration of love and unshakable faith for him to accept the captaincy and the reputation that comes afterwards of becoming the “Red Devil.”

Sailing by Orion’s Star had plenty of suspenseful chapters of the crew nearly getting caught but escaping. Since Sailing by Carina’s Star is darker, they aren’t always so lucky. Some get caught and their rescue takes a tremendous toll on their numbers. It also ends with a cliffhanger in which some are put in the worst position possible and face imprisonment, exile, or the gallows. 

With the characters maturing and the situation becoming darker for the characters, the third part of the Constellation Trilogy should be a final decisive climactic ending for the characters and the new families that they have formed in the ashes of the old ones.

New Book Alert: The Baron and the Enchantress (The Enchantress Book 3) by Paullett Golden; Excellent Beginning and Ending Marred By Dragging Repetitive Middle

New Book Alert: The Baron and The Enchantress (The Enchantress Book 3) by Paullett Golden; Excellent Beginning and Ending Marred By Dragging and Repetitive Middle

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews




Spoilers: Paullett Golden's Historical Romance, The Baron and The Enchantress, is like the little girl with the curl in the middle of her forehead from the nursery rhyme. When it is good, it is very good but when it is bad, it's horrid.

Well not really horrid, just dull and repetitive.

It begins well with an interesting premise in which a working class woman learns that she is descended from a noble family and ends well with lovers united, goals met, and families grown stronger. However, the steps between conflict and resolution are marred by a long slow trip through the same situation repeated over and over with barely any change in character and plot.


Lilith Chambers is an 18th century midwife who was raised and educated in an orphanage when news breaks out that she is the long-lost sister of Sebastian Lancaster, Earl of Roddam. She was raised as Sebastian's full sister by who she believed were her birth parents. Unfortunately, after the death of her loving adopted mother, her abusive father, the former Earl, sends her to an orphanage where she learns that she is actually the illegitimate daughter of the former Earl and a servant woman. After the Earl's death, Sebastian seeks to reunite his family by drawing Lilith back into the family.

Lilith's skills as a midwife proves useful in assisting Sebastian's wife, Lizbeth through a difficult delivery. She also captures the interest of Walter Hobbs, The Baron Collingwood. Walter is capitvated by Lilith's independent fiery spirit and she is drawn by his altruistic nature. The two become romantically involved, but Lilith is concerned that the revelation of her illegitimate birth could cause problems with her new-found family and love life.


The book starts out strong with characters that defy traditional romance expectations. One of the more unique refreshing takes with Lilith's age. She's 33. When most Historical Romance female protagonists usually are in their late teens and early twenties, it's nice to read about one who is approximately the same age as her usual readership. Lilith is a woman who has had plenty of life experiences and an older woman's more cynical outlook on life.

Also, Lilith is someone who is just as interested in pursuing a career as she is in getting married. Most of the early chapters focuses on Lizbeth's pregnancy and Lilith helping her. Her interactions with Lizbeth such as purposelyt contradicting the physician's reactionary medical advice reveal that she is good at her job.

She also teaches at the orphanage in which she was raised. She aids young girls in their scholarly pursuits, particularly in Math and Science. She also wants to help unwed troubled mothers, like her own birth mother, who are alone and abandoned. Lilith is someone with a great brain and a willingness to use it to help others.


Sebastian, Walter, and their family are also nice surprises as well. One would expect a wealthy titled family to look down on their poorer relation, but they don't. Sebastian welcomes her with open arms. Lizbeth instantly treats her like a much beloved sister, even before she saves her and her baby's lives. One would expect Lizbeth's aunt and Walter's mother, Hazel, to turn her nose up at Lilith's arrival. But after giving some terrified early misgivings during Lizbeth's delivery, she recalls her own rags to riches upbringing and welcomes Lilith grandly.

Walter in particular is also an interesting romantic figure. Like Lilith, he too dreams of a life of significance. He wants to do something important with his wealth and title. When he hears about Lilith's upbringing, he decides to fund an orphanage. While Lilith questions this, he is clearly committed to the goal and wouldn't mind having the assistance of a certain attractive educator/midwife in achieving it.

It is a nice departure to see noble people in literature using their resources to help others revealing that nobility isn't always just an inherited name. Sometimes it is an adjective that describes upstanding character.


Unfortunately, Golden does too good a job of revealing their acceptance of Lilith, that there is really nowhere for the book to go. There are some stereotypical snobbish aristocrats, but they don't really develop the plot that much. There is also an opportunistic clergyman acquaintance of Lilith's who becomes too obsessed with her. This subplot hints that the clergyman could make trouble for Lilith, but apart from having a case of foot-in-mouth disease not much happens and his story is arbitrarily solved.

Instead most of the book focuses on Lilith's lack of acceptance towards her new family, not theirs toward her. She constantly makes assumptions about the wealthy that are discredited by the actions of Walter, Sebastian, et al. Even after she is proven wrong, she still thinks of them as elitist snobs. She started out as an interesting strong willed character, but quickly devolves into a judgemental reverse snob.

I know that she was raised in an orphanage, but she is allegedly a woman of great brilliance and intelligence. Surely, her experience with Sebastian's family should serve as a counterexample to her assumptions. Not to mention that she should consider that if stereotypes aren't true about her, what makes her think that they are true about them. In fact, the more that they, particularly Walter, try to welcome her, the more she resists. I suppose it's supposed to make her endearing, but honestly it makes her look like a hypocrite.

This argument between Lilith's assumptions and Walter's actions keeps coming up and is repeated as though there isn't anything else that the book has to do. The problem may be because the story takes place en media res after Lilith's identity had been revealed in the previous novel, The Earl and the Enchantress. With a strong introduction, there may not have been anywhere else for this book to go.


Thankfully, Golden does salvage the ending into a sweet resolution that works well in which lovers are not only united, but they make plans to open that orphanage and home for unwed mothers, to help the next generation.

The Baron and the Enchantress starts and ends so we'll that it is a shame that the middle could use some of the same magic to become equally as enchanting as the rest of the book.