Review: The Pirate Queen by Patricia Hickman

The Pirate Queen by Patricia Hickman

Book Description: The envy of all her friends, wife and mother Saphora Warren is the model of southern gentility and accomplishment. She lives in a beautiful Lake Norman home, and has raised three capable adult children. But she’s also married to a successful, yet philandering plastic surgeon. It is for that reason that, after hosting a garden party for Southern Living magazine, Saphora packs her bags to escape the trappings of the picturesque-but-vacant life. Her planned destination is a neglected family bungalow on the Outer Banks.Saphora’s departure, though, is interrupted by her husband Bender’s early arrival home and his words that change her life forever: I’m dying.

Against her desires, Saphora agrees to take care of Bender, who instructs her to take him to fight his illness in their coastal home in Oriental—the same house to which she had planned her get-away. When her idyllic escape 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.

About the Author: Patricia Hickman, M.F.A., is an award-winning author of fiction and non-fiction whose work has been praised by critics and readers alike. Patricia first studied creative writing at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and then went on to do graduate studies in creative writing at Queens University. She writes for major publishers and is currently at work on her eighteenth book, a novel set in the North Carolina Piedmont. Her next novel,The Pirate Queen, will release Summer 2010, a story that takes readers journeying from suburban Lake Norman to the sailing villages of the Outer Banks. She has served as a writing professor at UNCC and taught in writing workshops across the country offering her popular “Creating Characters–Giving Story People Life” workshops and courses on fiction. She, along with her hubby, founded a non-profit charity that benefits moms and children with HIV called The Secret Angels Project. Her fiction is known for its depth of understanding of the human condition underscored by redemptive themes.

Here's What I Think: Though it starts out as a classic tale of the woman who seems to have everything, but underneath it all has very little happiness. However, Hickman has created a storyline that is riveting. Right off, you want to know how things will pan out. Saphora is a woman who stayed in a less than ideal marriage "for the children" but once they are all grown and gone, there is little need to stick around. However at the very moment that she chooses to take the next big step in here life she is hit right in the gut with the most horrible words your spouse can ever say "I'm dying" and she finds herself unable to walk out but rather to be the good wife she has been pretending to be for many many years. The characters are very well crafted in this emotionally-charged story about how we truly interact with society at large. I enjoyed the fluidity of the tale and look forward to reading more from Hickman.

Disclaimer: Although I did receive this book for review purposes, I was in no other way compensated to publish this post.

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