I read this when I was a teenager and had fond memories of it, so I decided to read it again now that I am sixty. Mistake. It is a fun romp I suppose for a romance novel, and the female protagonist is not helpless or meek. She is also not very likeable. I did enjoy the ending, which I will not spoil here. I skimmed the middle as it was pure romance, which is a genre I am not fond of. I can say it is well written, and if you enjoy the historical romance genre you may have a different experience with this book. ( )

Not as good as her other work. Seemed less believable, less investing, and more like any romance novel. ( )

3.5* for the book itself, rounded up due to John Castle's marvelous narration. ( )

Personally I don’t think this is Daphne du Maurier‘s best work. I think it sits well with other novels set in Cornwall. It should be read as historical fiction with a dash of romance and crime Thornton in. The plotting is good and there are certainly some times when there is a feeling of a Saturday morning pulp adventure going on. I largely enjoyed it. I thought the overall plot was simple was well handled. ( )

Lady Dona St. Columb is tired of Court life in London, tired of her husband and her position, so she takes her children down to her husband’s country estate in Cornwall, in order to rest in isolation. Alas, it turns out that the countryside is being menaced by a pirate, a French pirate at that, and it seems her neighbours want to enlist her husband to help them catch the scoundrel. One evening, she sees a ship making its way into a creek on her property and before she knows it, she has been captured by the pirate! And so, of course, they fall in love…. Well, a brief sketch of this classic novel, one that isn’t really to my taste as I really don’t care for romance novels and that is what this is primarily; but it’s also an adventure story, and a rather lovely pean to the marvelous countryside of Cornwall, a place where I lived as a small child. It made me nostalgic in that respect, and I did like that Lady Dona is a fiercely independent young woman in a time (the reign of Charles II) when women had little freedom; but really, aside from the descriptive writing, this one was not really for me. ( )