While it might be anachronistic to expect a pirate queen to spend a lot of time in introspection, Shek Yeung never quite emerges as a fully formed character-and, given that the story is told from her point of view, the other characters are flat and opaque, as well. Chang-Eppig is a serious writer, and there are many moments of real lyrical beauty in this novel. At the same time, it seems like the author doesn’t want to commit to writing historical fiction. In making Shek Yeung her heroine, Chang-Eppig didn’t have to commit herself to writing a story that conforms with the basic contours of this real-life pirate queen’s life, but that’s what she’s chosen.
The character Shek Yeung is based on a real historical figure, a woman who survived sea battles with both the Qing Empire and the East India Company during the early 19th century. She commands her own junks and her own men, but the Red Banner Fleet cannot survive divided. Her more pressing concern, though, is that Cheng Yat has left his ships to his male protégé, Cheung Po.
He freed her from her life as a sex slave to make her a pirate, and upon his death she's surprised to realize she loves him. Cheng Yat’s death is both a personal and professional problem for Shek Yeung. This story begins with the heroine watching her husband die during a failed attack on a Portuguese ship. This is not to be missed.A debut novel inspired by the legendary career of one of history’s most successful pirates. The prose is lyrical (“Typhoons and cannonballs cared nothing for the complicated little folded cranes of feeling that beat their wings in the heart”) and the plot is clever and serpentine, exploring questions of power, violence, gender, and fate. What follows is a bold and bloody showdown between the government and the pirate queen. Meanwhile, rumors circulate that the emperor has brought in a specialist to extinguish the threat of piracy. She convinces Po to marry her and agrees to bear him a son, believing their alliance is the only way to ensure the fleet’s survival. Cheung Po, Yat’s adopted son, is the fleet’s legal heir, and Yeung worries Po may take the opportunity to wrest control away from her. During a botched raid on a Portuguese merchant ship, pirate Cheng Yat, captain of the Red Banner Fleet, is killed by sailors who “had come prepared for war.” In the aftermath, his wife, Shek Yeung, fears for her standing among her fellow outlaws. Chang-Eppig debuts with a rollicking 19th-century adventure on the South China Sea.
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