Book Review–the Pirate Queen

I just finished reading the Pirate Queen by Patricia Hickman.

Saphora makes plans to leave her plastic surgeon cheating husband. Her children are grown and she just wants to be alone. But even as she was packing her bags to escape to the family’s little used home in the Outer Banks, her husband comes home unexpectedly and informs her he has cancer.

Against her desires, Saphora agrees to take care of Bender as he fights his illness. They relocate, at his insistance, to their coastal home in Oriental—the same house she had chosen for her private getaway. When her idyllic retreat is overrun by her grown children, grandchildren, townspeople, relatives, and a precocious neighbor child, Saphora’s escape to paradise is anything but the life she had imagined.

I really enjoyed this book! The characters were well developed and I could relate with them. Saphora was such a compassionate woman who took in everyone that needed love, and helped even those who didn’t deserve her help.

And clean. It’s so nice to find a book that doesn’t have a bunch of sex, swearing or other smut to clutter up the plot. This is a book I could recommend to a friend without any disclaimers or warnings. I could loan it to my mother or even my daughter, if she wanted to read it. The main characters go through a lot of personal discovery in addition to many trials, and while there is talk of faith and God, this book was not at all preachy.

At the beginning of each chapter were beautiful and inspirational quotes from different books, Even when I finished the book, I wanted to go back and reread those quotes. My favorite one of these quotes is,
“There is no such thing as a simple act of compassion or an inconsequential act of service. Everything we do for another person has infinite consequences.” –Caroline Myss

This is a beautiful, heartwarming book. I want to immediately find Patricia Hickman’s other books, Painted Dresses and Katrina’s Wings. And if you would like to read a GREAT book that will warm your heart, I would be happy to lend you this one.

**I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review**