Tory Lightfoot, nee Victoria MacKenzie, is your typical Native American/Scottish half breed in 1823 Boston, stuck in an uptight school for girls after her mother died and her father went mad. Desperate to escape her situation, she flees in the night, disguises herself as a boy, stows away on a merchant ship and ends up throwing in with pirates -- earning, as she does so, the eternal enmity of the merchant's first mate.

She passes for some time as a young pirate lad, but it doesn't take too long before her gender is revealed, but she has proven herself useful enough -- and perhaps lucky, too -- to earn herself a permanent berth among the crew of the Blessed Providence, Capt. Ed Hart commanding.

A female pirate is rare, although not unheard of, but the golden age of piracy has passed. Tory, after all, is cavorting among the rigging some 100 years after Anne Bonny and Mary Read ended their spree. The crew of the Providence is lucky enough, and no more bloody that they need to be, but a series of aggressive campaigns by the U.S. Navy to put an end to piracy makes for some dicey sailing. And, of course, there's still the matter of the merchant's mate, who hasn't forgotten her.

Lisa Jensen's nautical adventure is a fun coming-of-age story about a budding young woman who makes the most of a bad situation. Jensen also touches on some of the issues of the day, particularly the evils of slavery, and she spices up her tale with a bit of bodice-ripping romance, too. Fortunately, there's not so much of the latter that it drowns the book in sappy sentimentality, but the author does occasionally get a little graphic with her down-and-dirty pirate sex.

All in all, The Witch from the Sea is an entertaining little adventure novel. Tory is a likable protagonist, and the book is peopled with plenty of well-rounded friends and foes and a fair amount of action and suspense. There's a sense of fun in the book that is often lacking in books in this genre.

Readers more accustomed to the level of seamanship described by the likes of O'Brian, Kent and Forester should not expect that type of detail here, but it's an enjoyable book all the same.