A Christy Award finalist and winner of two Inspirational Readers’ Choice awards, MaryLu Tyndall dreamt of tall ships and swashbuckling heroes during her childhood years on Florida’s Atlantic Coast. She holds a degree in Math and worked as a software engineer for fifteen years before she penned her first novel. Now, with more than twenty-five books published, she makes her home in California with her husband, six children, four grandchildren and various stray cats.  Her hope is that readers will not only be entertained but will be brought closer to the Creator who loves them beyond measure. For more information, visit her website at marylutyndall.com

Charlisse Bristol sets off on a voyage in search of a father she never knew, only to become shipwrecked on an island. She longs for a father’s love to fill the emptiness in her soul from an abusive childhood, but resigns herself to a lonely death of starvation. Her salvation comes in the form of a band of pirates and their fierce, enigmatic leader, Captain Merrick.

The last thing Merrick expected to find in the middle of the Caribbean was a beautiful maiden. Now he is burdened with the task of not only protecting her from his crew, but from himself. A recent convert to Christianity, Merrick is haunted by a sordid past while he struggles to become a better man and accepts a mission from God to hunt down the most vicious pirates on the Caribbean. 

Charlisse can make no sense of Captain Merrick. A pirate who prays and drinks rum? Breaking her vow to never trust any man, she finds herself falling for the pirate/priest, who more than once risks his life to save her. When she confides in him her quest to find her father, Merrick agrees to help. What he doesn’t realize is Charlisse’s father is the ruthless Edward the Terror, the one man Merrick has vowed to hunt down and kill.

Evil forces are at work against Charlisse and Merrick: enemies, battles, imprisonment, jealousy, and betrayal, all threaten to destroy not only their new found romance but their very lives. It will take a miracle—or several—for either of them to survive.


Legacy of the King's Pirates

Charlisse spent the rest of the day pacing the reverend's cottage while he attended to his duties at the church. Why didn't God do something? Her fears returned like vultures, pecking away at her withering faith and sending her hope adrift.


Sloane came by early in the evening to give his progress report, and at the reverend's bidding, he stayed for dinner. As all three sat dourly down to a meal of wild pork, mangoes, and corn, Sloane admitted in frustration he had nothing positive to report.


The reverend's news about Merrick's appointment at the gallows only increased the aged pirate's distress, causing the weathered lines on his face to deepen before Charlisse's eyes.


"The audacity o' that dawcock gov'nor," he grunted. "After all the cap'n's done fer him." He threw his fork down and stood. "Beggin' yer pardon, miss."


"It's perfectly all right, Sloane. I feel the same way." It was the first time she had seen him lose his voracious appetite.


Chapter 29: Into Her Own Hands