Set in 11th century Málaga, ‘The Pirate’ is the second book in The City of Dreams trilogy. This fast moving and exciting historical novel takes the reader into the medieval world of the merchants and seafarers who sail along the western coast of the Mediterranean, and the pirates who terrorise them.
Early one morning, the ambitious pirate captain, al-Awar, makes a lightning raid on the shipyard in Málaga and kidnaps Bakr, a master shipbuilder, and two of his workmen. Before anyone can do anything about it, they have disappeared. No-one has any idea why the pirates have taken them or where they have gone, but everyone agrees that only one of two fates await them: death or slavery.
When Bakr’s wife receives the news, she is heartbroken but refuses to listen to those who say there is little hope of ever finding her husband alive. Instead she is determined to discover where the pirates have taken him. With the entire Mediterranean to hide in, finding the kidnapped men seems to be an impossible task, but she refuses to give up and motivates her family and friends to search for him.
At the heart of this novel is the tender love story of Aisha and Bakr’s deep feelings for each other. It is the thought of her that helps to keep him alive while he is in captivity with little prospect of ever seeing his home and family again, and it is her love for him that gives her the strength to never give up hope of bringing him home.
Genre: FICTION / HistoricalJust published
EXTRACT: CHAPTER 1
Bakr opened his eyes to total blackness, not the darkness of a starless night but that of a pitch-black hole, with no chink of light to alleviate it. Where the hell was he? His head was pounding and when he tried to sit up he realised that he was bound hand and foot, face down in the slimy hold of a ship. Gradually, as his senses returned to him, he became aware of the gentle roll of the sea; they were anchored in sheltered water.
A low groan came from somewhere on his right. He wasn’t alone.
‘Who’s there?’ he whispered.
‘Bakr? Is that you. Thanks be to Allah. I thought you were dead and I was alone in this infernal place.’
‘Asim? What happened? Where are we?’ Asim was the yard’s foreman.
‘Don’t you remember anything? The pirate ship? Nothing?’
‘No, my mind is a blank and my head is pounding as if all the devils in hell were hammering in it.’
‘Not surprised. Gave you a pretty heavy blow, they did. Wonder they didn’t kill you. I thought they had by the way you went down. Like a poleaxed bull.’
‘So it was pirates?’
‘Looked like that to me. To be honest it was all over so fast I didn’t take much in. Too busy fighting them off. Then the next thing I knew there was a sack over my head and some big bugger had me over his shoulder.’
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Italian
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Already translated.
Translated by Emanuele Croce
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Portuguese
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Already translated.
Translated by Evelyn T M Martins
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Author review: Excellent and on time, as usual. |
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Spanish
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Already translated.
Translated by Eva Romero Lozano
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Author review: Excellent work again and on time. |
