Enfilade

The book first appeared from Bloomsbury in 2024 with a paperback edition released earlier this year:

Francesca de Tores, Saltblood (London: Bloomsbury, 2024), 368 pages, ISBN: ‎978-1526661333, £17.

An epic historical fiction debut inspired by real life female pirates.

In a rented room outside Plymouth in 1685, a daughter is born as her half-brother is dying. Her mother makes a decision: Mary will become Mark, and Ma will continue to collect his inheritance money. Mary’s dual existence as Mark will lead to a role as a footman in a grand house, serving a French mistress; to the navy, learning who to trust and how to navigate by the stars; and to the army and the battlegrounds of Flanders, finding love among the bloodshed and the mud. But none of this will stop Mary yearning for the sea. Drawn back to the water, Mary must reinvent herself yet again, for a woman aboard a ship is a dangerous thing. This time Mary will become something more dangerous than a woman. She will become a pirate.

Breathing life into the Golden Age of Piracy, Saltblood is a wild adventure, a treasure trove, weaving an intoxicating tale of gender and survival, passion and loss, journeys and transformation, through the story of Mary Read, one of history’s most remarkable figures.

Francesca de Tores is a novelist, poet, and academic. She is the author of several novels, published in over 20 languages, including Saltblood, which won the 2024 Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize. In addition to a collection of poems, her poetry is published widely in journals and anthologies. She grew up in Lutruwita/Tasmania and, after fifteen years in England, is now living in Naarm/Melbourne.