Image courtesy of Austin Neill on Unsplash
The Pirates of Port Royal are about to set sail again!
I’m pleased to announce that, under the imprint of Sinnamon Press, all previously published novels will shortly be back on the market. Since they were taken off the shelves, I’ve been revising and editing the original works to make them even better than before.
All four books will be published in April in their brand new editions with brand new covers. For release day specials and free reads, sign up to Scribblings & Musings, my regular newsletter.
Four books? I hear you say. Does this mean there’s a brand new Pirates of Port Royal book? Well, that’s a bit of a story…
When I received my rights back from Loose Id, I quickly republished A Summer Pursuit and The Winter Trail. However, I decided the Pirates of Port Royal series needed a closer look. Amongst other things, I wanted to better incorporate the story arc—murder and espionage in the seventeenth century Caribbean!
And those of you who know me know I feel very strongly about using American spelling and grammar in what is essentially a British story. (I really am too pedantic for my own good sometimes.)
Pirate’s Promise and The Penitent Pirate only needed a light rework, but I was never happy with the published version of The Puritan Pirate. As Keren Reed, my long-suffering editor at Loose Id, may remember! At the time, I felt the story wasn’t ready to go out, but market forces intervened, and I rushed its release.
Having the leisure of no publishing deadline, I thought I’d try to craft the book into what I originally wanted. And that was two books, because it really is two distinct stories—the story of Perry and Quinn discovering each other, and the story of Perry realising he values love more than he values his career.
I thought long and hard. I tore chapters apart and knitted them back together. I wrote substantial new material to round the manuscript out into two standalone stories. And then, I made the plunge. I split it into The Puritan Pirate and Pirate Master.
So, readers, while there’s a wodge of new chapters across both books, giving deeper insights into Perry and Quinn, Pirate Master is not a new release as such. But I’ll let you in on a not-very-well-kept secret! There is a new Pirates of Port Royal book coming soon, but more on that in another post.
As an author, I learned two lessons from this experience.
The first: Trust your instincts. I knew The Puritan Pirate wasn’t ready, but I published it anyway. I knew it needed to be two books, but I listened to well-meaning friends who said it was great the way it was.
The second: Never rush a release! You’ll always regret it, as I did.