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Isle of Fire was written by Wayne Thomas Batson and published in 2008 as the sequel to his book Isle of Swords . These books are pirate fiction novels directed primarily at young adult readers and written from a Christian perspective.
Declan Ross, accepting the British offer of pardons to pirates who would turn from their illegal trade, is now attempting to convince other pirates to do the same. Meanwhile, rumors have arisen that Bartholomew Thorne, formerly thought to have been killed in a flood, is alive and plotting.
Cat, who has been staying with a group of monks for a time, has been offered the task of commanding a ship full of fighting monks on a mission to hunt down the elusive Merchant. He accepts, and with Ross's permission, takes Anne on as quartermaster.
While Ross combs the sea for news of Thorne, Cat and Anne discover the Merchant's underwater lair. Eventually, they are separated from their comrades and, in the ensuing battle with the Merchant himself, Anne escapes the lair while Cat is captured. Anne is picked up by the Robert Bruce and Cat, trapped in a cell on the Merchant's ship, is faced with a choice: become the evil man's apprentice or die. The Merchant arranges a meeting with Thorne himself and offers to return Cat to his father for a price. Bartholomew, however, hatefully refuses.
Meanwhile, Lady Dolphin, Commodore Blake, and their young friend Hopper sail to an island where Thorne was reportedly last seen. There the two adults are captured by the Raukar, Viking descendants who are under Thorne's leadership. Hopper is able to rescue Blake but Lady Dolphin remains a prisoner. While in Bartholomew's captivity, he and she discover that Dolphin is Thorne's daughter, the child of Heather, the wife he lost in a fire. This news confounds the terrible pirate, who, while not fond of Dolphin, now cannot seem to stay away from her.
With a Viking army, Thorne sails to London and bombs it with a destructive and mysterious weapon of the Raukar: fire rain. With vengeful satisfaction, Bartholomew wipes out and cripples the British Navy and watches the British city in burning confusion. He then sails off to personally destroy the monastery Cat formerly stayed at.
Ross and Anne sail to defend the monastery as soon as they learn of Thorne's terrible work. There before the monks' home, they confront Bartholomew in a sea battle, which further intensifies with the arrival of the Merchant's ship and a hurricane. In the ensuing fight, Cat boldly escapes the Merchant's ship, that same vessel is soon sunk, Hopper and some of Ross's crewmen rescue Dolphin, and several Raukar ships are destroyed in the hurricane. In a final confrontation on Ross's ship, Declan, Cat and Stede together kill Thorne.
The battered Robert Bruce and its crew ride out the rest of the hurricane in its eye and then return in triumph to the monastery. As the story ends, London is struggling to recover and rebuild itself and Cat comes to Declan with a question.
Declan Ross - Former pirate and captain of the Robert Bruce. He is a brave, kind man who, even during his life of piracy, discouraged violence and promoted mercy. Ross's wife Abigail died under mysterious circumstances when their daughter, Anne, was very young.
Anne Ross - Declan's daughter. Red-headed, feisty and proud, she adores the perilous sailing life.
Cat - The disowned son of Bartholomew Thorne. In this book he is struggling intensely with worry, sparked by physical and sometimes mental resemblances to his father, that he is becoming like the terrible pirate. In spite of frequenting outbursts of anger, Cat is generally a friendly person who has become especially fond of Anne. Though he lost most of his life's memories because of an injury, he is proving himself an adept seaman and a valiant fighter.
Bartholomew Thorne - The villain of this story. His cruelty on land and at sea had earned him the reputation of one of the most notorious pirates of the Caribbean. Because of a fire set by the English, Thorne's hands and voice were scarred and his favorite wife Heather was killed. Chiefly because of the death of his wife, Thorne harbors a deadly, vengeful hatred against the British.
The Merchant - Hereditary title handed down a long line of evil men who, since the time of Emperor Nero, have been dealing in weapons, poisons, and other instruments of war. The current Merchant, an extremely evil and deadly fighter, lives in an underwater network of tunnels creating a dangerous lair. He hopes to train Cat, in whom he sees much potential for malice, to be his apprentice.
Commodore Blake - A brave Commodore in British Navy, who, though formerly Ross's enemy, has befriended Declan. He loses his position, though, after some unexpected treachery from his former quartermaster.
Dolphin Blake - Friendly, spirited wife of Commodore Blake. The orphaned woman is seeking to learn more about her uncertain past.
Hopper - Orphaned boy recently taken in by the Blakes. Eager to please his new family and friends, he does all he can to be helpful to them.
Nigel - Blake's former quartermaster, who is secretly working for Thorne.
Hrothgar - Leader of the ancient Viking-like tribe of the Raukar. He rallies his massive, primitive army under Thorne when the pirate calls for his help for an attack on England.
Edward Teach - Thorne's new quartermaster.
Stede - Declan Ross's quartermaster, an intensely loyal man with a pronounced accent and a fierce "thunder gun".
Scully - A ratlike little man who works for Thorne, chiefly as a messenger and spy.
Edmund Bellamy - Though not as feared as Thorne, Bellamy nonetheless is known as an evil and dangerous pirate.
Red Eye - A "powder monkey" on the Robert Bruce. He is so named because of a reddish-tinged, blinded eye, the result of a past incident involving some gunpowder. Though equipped with a fierce passion for all things sharp and dangerous, he a good friend and very faithful to Ross.
Jacques St. Pierre - Master of all things explosive. With a passion for "things that go BOOM!", this elegant yet naturally dangerous Frenchman is another member of Declan's crew.
Jules - Ross's largest and physically strongest crew member. Like nearly all of the men on the Robert Bruce, he is very devoted to his captain and shipmates.
Nubby - The fierce, one-armed cook of the Robert Bruce.
King George - The German-speaking king of England who speaks very little English. Later known as King George I one of the greediest kings in Britain.
Information taken from:
Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard, was an English pirate who operated around the West Indies and the eastern coast of Britain's North American colonies. Little is known about his early life, but he may have been a sailor on privateer ships during Queen Anne's War before he settled on the Bahamian island of New Providence, a base for Captain Benjamin Hornigold, whose crew Teach joined around 1716. Hornigold placed him in command of a sloop that he had captured, and the two engaged in numerous acts of piracy. Their numbers were boosted by the addition to their fleet of two more ships, one of which was commanded by Stede Bonnet; but Hornigold retired from piracy toward the end of 1717, taking two vessels with him.
Jolly Roger is the traditional English name for the flags flown to identify a pirate ship preceding or during an attack, during the early 18th century.
John Rackham, commonly known as Calico Jack, was an English pirate captain operating in the Bahamas and in Cuba during the early 18th century. His nickname was derived from the calico clothing that he wore, while Jack is a nickname for "John".
Captain Benjamin Hornigold (1680–1719) was an English pirate who operated during the tail end of the Golden Age of Piracy.
Stede Bonnet was an early 18th-century English/Barbadian pirate, also known as the Gentleman Pirate for the reason that he was a moderately wealthy landowner before turning to a life of crime. Bonnet was born into a wealthy English family on the island of Barbados, and inherited the family estate after his father's death in 1694. Despite his lack of sailing experience, Bonnet decided he should turn to piracy in the winter of 1716 or spring of 1717. He bought a sailing vessel, the Revenge, and travelled with his paid crew along the Eastern Seaboard of what is now the United States, capturing other vessels and burning other Barbadian ships.
A pirate code, pirate articles, or articles of agreement were a code of conduct for governing pirates. A group of sailors, on turning pirate, would draw up their own code or articles, which provided rules for discipline, division of stolen goods, and compensation for injured pirates. Breaking the code could get a pirate marooned or killed.
Henry Jennings was an 18th-century English privateer from the colony of Bermuda, who served primarily during the War of the Spanish Succession and later served as leader of the pirate haven or "republic" of New Providence.
See also 1717 in piracy, 1719 in piracy, and Timeline of piracy.
Nathaniel North was a Bermuda-born pirate during the Golden Age of Piracy, operating in the Indian Ocean under John Bowen and then as captain of the Defiant following Bowen's retirement in 1704. After losing the Defiant he ruled a pirate colony at Ambonaivo made up of his former crew before returning to sea. Retiring with great wealth in 1709, North settled in Madagascar and married a local woman, but was murdered by her family.
Isle of Swords is a pirate novel for young adults by Wayne Thomas Batson, also author of The Door Within Trilogy. First published in 2007, it tells of sailors, pirates, and a mysterious group of monks all working to get a great treasure, the treasure of Constantine. A sequel, Isle of Fire, was published in 2008.
The Battle of Cape Fear River, or the Battle of the Sandbars, was fought in September 1718 between a British naval expedition from the Province of South Carolina against the pirate ships of Stede Bonnet. British forces defeated the pirates in the Cape Fear River estuary which led to Bonnet's eventual death by hanging in Charleston.
Pirates of the Golden Age of Piracy were organized criminals. As well as having crew members assigned certain duties, pirates found a way to reduce conflict among themselves and maximize profits. They used a democratic system, spelled out by written "articles of agreement", to limit the captain's power and to keep order on board the ship.
Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard, was a notorious English pirate who operated around the West Indies and the eastern coast of the American colonies during the early 18th century. He captained the Queen Anne's Revenge, a 200-ton frigate originally named the Concord, and died in a fierce battle with troops from Virginia on November 22, 1718, at Ocracoke Island.
Ignatius Pell was a pirate who served as the boatswain to Captain Stede Bonnet aboard the Royal James, a ship previously named Revenge. He was arrested in October 1718 and testified against his crew and captain.
David Herriot was a ship’s master and pirate best known for serving under Blackbeard and Stede Bonnet.
Samuel Inless was a pirate captain in the Indian Ocean, best known for serving as Captain over Nathaniel North and George Booth.
The Flying Gang was an 18th-century group of pirates who established themselves in Nassau, New Providence in the Bahamas after the destruction of Port Royal in Jamaica. The gang consisted of the most notorious and cunning pirates of the time, and they terrorized and pillaged the Caribbean until the Royal Navy and infighting brought them to justice. They achieved great fame and wealth by raiding salvagers attempting to recover gold from the sunken Spanish treasure fleet. They established their own codes and governed themselves independent from any of the colonial powers of the time. Nassau was deemed the Republic of Pirates as it attracted many former privateers looking for work to its shores. The Governor of Bermuda stated that there were over 1,000 pirates in Nassau at that time and that they outnumbered the mere hundred inhabitants in the town.
Lieutenant Richards was a pirate active in the Caribbean and off the Carolinas. He is best known for sailing alongside Blackbeard.
Richard Tookerman was born on 16 May 1691 in Devon, Cornwall, England. He was the son of Josias Tookerman, a clergyman, and younger brother of Josias Tookerman II, a clergyman sent by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (SPG) to Jamaica. He married Katherine Grant, widow of John Grant of Charleston, South Carolina by 1717. As a pirate, smuggler, and trader active in the Caribbean and the Carolinas, he became best known for involvement with pirates Stede Bonnet and Bartholomew Roberts.
Daniel Porter was a pirate and trader active in the Caribbean. He is best known for his associations with Benjamin Hornigold and Bartholomew Roberts.