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“When one man’s treasure is another man’s curse"
Book Information:
Title: The Curse at Pirate’s Cove
Series: Nikki Landry Swamp Legends, Book 2
Author Name: Rita Monette
Genre(s): Middle Grade, Adventure, Mystery
Tags: Middle Grade, Adventure, Pirates, Bayou, Louisiana
Length: Approx. 208 pages
E-book: 978-1-987976-02-1
Paperback: 978-1-987976-01-4
Re-Release Date: Nov.17, 2015
Publisher: Mirror World Publishing
About the Book:
Nikki Landry is turning eleven years old, and is looking forward to riding her bike to school. That is until it falls apart. Papa can’t afford a new one. Is she doomed to ride the smelly old school bus from now on?
Hearing of an old pirate ship, and a legend about long-ago pirates burying treasure on a nearby swamp island, Nikki sees a way out. But when she makes a birthday wish for the pirate’s gold, things go terribly wrong. Did her wish trigger an ancient curse?
Join Nikki and her friends as they find themselves sailing away aboard a haunted schooner with ghostly pirates into the Gulf of Mexico … and into the year eighteen fourteen.
How will they ever find their way back home?
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Purchase Links:
Amazon:
http://amzn.to/1HG1d39
Mirror World Publishing:
http://mirror-world-publishing.myshopify.com/collections/adventure/products/the-curse-at-pirates-cove
Chapters:
https://www.chapters.indigo.ca/en-ca/books/the-curse-at-pirates-cove/9781987976021-item.html?ikwid=Rita+Monette&ikwsec=Home&ikwidx=0
Barnes and Noble:
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-curse-at-pirates-cove-rita-monette/1120806662?ean=9781987976021
Meet the Author:
Rita Monette was born and raised in Southwest Louisiana. She loves to write stories set in the beautiful, yet mysterious, bayous and swamps of her home state.
Her middle grade series, The Nikki Landry Swamp Legends, is based on tales told by her father—who made his living in those bayous—of reasons to stay out of the swamp.
She currently lives with her husband, four lap dogs, and one lap cat, in the mountains of Tennessee. Besides writing and illustrating, she loves watching the many birds that make their habitat on the Cumberland Plateau, working in the garden, and frequenting waterfalls.
Guest Post by Rita Monette:
Jean Lafitte, Pirate or Hero?
by Rita Monette
What? You’ve
never heard of him?
Well, from New Orleans, Louisiana to
Galveston, Texas, every child grows up knowing the legends of treasure that is
supposedly buried all along the Gulf coast and the inland bayous and swamps.
The quests to locate the booty of Jean Lafitte have been ongoing for almost two
hundred years.
So who then was Jean Lafitte? One
thing is for certain. Lafitte is such a legendary figure, it is hard to
separate fact from fiction. I’ve compiled just a short summary of
what I have learned while researching for my novel, The Curse at Pirate’s Cove. Most of
it is based on fact, but as with all legends, fact can morph into its own
reality over time.
Lafitte was born in Bordeaux France
in seventeen eighty of wealthy parents, and sailed the high seas at an early
age with older brothers. Interestingly enough, Lafitte, an educated man, always
maintained that he was never a pirate, but actually a businessman and privateer
working for various governments. After coming to America, Jean and his brother
Pierre took on a contract with the government to attack ships that posed a
threat in the Gulf of Mexico, and were allowed to keep whatever spoils went
along with that task. Starting with only one ship, the Lafittes built a small
fleet from confiscated vessels.
Of course, his activities began to
cross many illegal lines as he saw opportunities for profit, such as selling
slaves and bounty from ships he captured. He set up a colony in Barataria bay,
on a small island near New Orleans. On certain occasions he would sell his loot
and slaves at a market in New Orleans. When it became illegal to sell slaves in
the state, he started selling them directly to plantation owners that could
only get them illegally.
The governor of Louisiana, tired of
his antics, declared him a pirate and put a bounty on his head. His compound in
Barataria was destroyed by the American navy, along with most of his fleet.
However, Lafitte got the chance to
redeem himself with America when he offered his assistance to Colonel Andrew
Jackson to help fight the British during The War of 1812.
Lafitte learned the British were
planning to attack the City of New Orleans from the Gulf, which would have
given them access to the Mississippi River. He offered up his band of pirates
to help defend the city. After all, they had much gun powder, and they knew the
bayous like the back of their hands. In return he asked for a pardon for all of
his men. Was it because he was loyal to America? A patriot? Or as legend
suggests, did he do it for a woman he loved? Whichever the case may be, Andrew
Jackson and Governor Claiborne reluctantly accepted the offer.
The Battle of New Orleans became a
turning point in American history, when the formidable British army was
defeated by Jackson’s army, Lafitte’s
pirates, and the ordinary citizens of the city.
~~~~~
The Curse at Pirate’s Cove, a novel
for ages eight and up, is a fictional tale of what might have become of one of
Lafitte’s ships, as they scattered from Barataria in the fall of
eighteen fourteen.
When one man's treasure is another
man's curse.
Nikki Landry and her friends
encounter a ghostly pirate ship, along with its ghostly crew, on a swamp island
near their home, travel back in time to eighteen fourteen, and experience a
history lesson first hand.
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