The Swashbuckler trilogy, by Kelly Gardiner, is the story of Lily Swann, who is kidnapped by pirates and finds herself caught up in some of the most dramatic events in the history of the Mediterranean Sea.
Book One: Ocean Without End
Twelve year-old Lily lives on the island of Santa Lucia, somewhere in the Mediterranean Sea, with her younger brother Lucas and their widowed mother.
Early one morning, Lily and Lucas watch in fear as their town is attacked by a pirate ship. The family runs to safety in a secret cave in the hills. There, later that night, Lily learns that years ago her father was taken by pirates, and may still be alive and sailing somewhere on the high seas.
As Lily sits alone on the hill and watches the pirate ship leave the harbour, she swears that one day she will find out the truth about her father and bring him home alive. But she is caught by a raiding party from the ship, kidnapped at gunpoint, and taken away on the Gisella by its tyrannical El Capitán de Diablo.
Will she ever be able to return home? What is the truth behind her father’s disappearance? Can she ever escape El Capitán de Diablo?
Read an extract: Ocean Without End
Book Two: The Pirate’s Revenge
Once a pirate slave, Lily Swann is navigator on the Mermaid, running the French blockade of Malta, when she learns her long-lost father may still be alive.
But before she can follow up her discovery, Lily clashes with the vile Captain Diablo, who forces her to show him the way to the famed Golden Grotto. Furious when he is unable to locate its fabled wealth, he abandons her to die in the darkness. As she battles her way out, Lily discovers the true treasure of the grotto.
But the world outside is in turmoil, as the people of Malta rise up against the French invasion, and Lily’s silver sword is soon put to the test.
Finally, after another confrontation with Diablo, Lily is cast adrift with her old adversary, Hussein Reis, in a tiny boat without oars, sails, food or water – the pirate’s revenge!
Read an extract: The Pirate’s Revenge
Book Three: The Silver Swan
In her spacious new home overlooking the sea, Lily is having trouble coping with life ashore.
Parental discipline is boring after months of a carefree pirate life, and it’s not easy to adjust to being back with her family. Everyone is grumpy and on edge, nothing she does is right, and nobody seems to believe Lily’s stories of her days as a pirate.
Then one night a fiery family argument is interrupted by a sinister knock on the door.
The world around them has erupted into war, and this time the Swann family goes into action together, as Lily faces her most dangerous adventure yet.
