The Pirate of Your Heart
Good Fit
- Readers of young-adult novels that mix sea adventure and the pirate theme with romance
- Anyone looking for a fast-moving, dialogue-driven and easy-to-read book
- Readers who like stories of a brave heroine against a dystopian backdrop
Not a Fit
- Readers wary of a captor and a captive growing close: this romantic line is the backbone of the book
- Readers expecting a detailed, realistic world: drought and bans are only a backdrop
- Anyone sensitive to threats with weapons
The book opens with Roza narrating in the first person: «Poems spoke of love, novels of fear. I wish I had fallen in love…» As a child she would put her fingers in the little river behind the house and feel the waves; now the river is dry and the earth cracked. The story begins in 1984 in the country of Mogala. Roza looks at the mansion she inherited through her grandfather one last time and prepares to leave.
The world is built in a few pages. The water shortage became serious three years ago, farming and production stopped, aid takes weeks to reach an island country, and most who set out on the ocean never returned. The latest decision is «no child-bearing until a new decision» and water runs only twice a week. Roza accepts this: she would not want to bring a child into a country with no future. Her father is a former bureaucrat and through his connections has found a secret place with fresh water that few people will go to. Roza is ashamed to be privileged.
The characters are sketched quickly: a mother who always finds something to complain about and will not give up luxury, seventeen-year-old Layla, carefree and eager for the trip, and a stern father. Roza herself likes solitude, keeps people at a distance, studied in England, read English literature, and has no close friends. Elena is the household helper and her five-year-old son Alvin is the child the narrator loves most. Although her father says «we only have the right to take five people», Roza gets the boy included by saying «I will take all responsibility». The scene shows the girl's character: stubborn, unable to bear injustice, sometimes speaking before thinking.
They set out at night and board the Eros in the light of a full moon. Her father hands the car keys to the man helping with the ship; Roza wonders whether they will ever ride in it again. The cabins are separate, and in half an hour the captain will brief them at the dinner table on the terrace. Fifteen people sit at the table. As the ship's owner, Adam, says the journey will be secret and hard, three armed men enter the terrace; a blue-eyed one pulls out a chair and sits at the head of the table, Adam is dragged away by the arms, and when the captain reaches for his radio he is sent back with «your deputy captain isn't in good shape».
The centre of the scene is Roza standing up. When the gun is turned on her father she gets to her feet, asks «Who are you?» and is told «I am your captain. The ship is mine until a second order, Roza». Roza demands they call the police; the man says «you thought you would reach the police in the middle of the ocean? On a secret, forbidden journey?» When none of the men at the table rises, Roza shames them; someone asks «Are you a pirate?» and the man confirms. His name is Elvis; his companions are Ares and Martin. He says he will not point his gun at women and will release the ship and passengers once his interests are met.
The author works mostly through the tension of the scene: short lines, mocking answers, the heroine's angry inner commentary. Elvis both threatens and jokes; he returns a woman's brooch to its owner, softens near the child, yet his eyes seem «insincere» to Roza. The narrator sets up the tension of this pair in a romantic tone from the start: «ice-blue eyes» is repeated again and again. The weaknesses are visible too: Roza's thoughts sometimes repeat the same idea, the pirates get a lot of epithets such as «clown» and «scum», and the world of drought remains only a backdrop.
- The raid scene is built quickly and tensely, putting the reader straight into the action in the first chapter
- Roza narrates in the first person, and her thoughts and doubts are given openly
- Dystopian details such as drought, famine and the birth ban are brief but effective
- The heroine's character is clear: even when afraid she stands with the weak
- The ship setting creates the tension of a closed space well
A classic example of sea adventure and pirate novels
A story of a brave young heroine against a dystopian backdrop
A young-adult pirate adventure with a strong heroine
The passengers are locked in their cabins; Roza finds that one of the three books in her suitcase is gone: the pirates took it. Through the keyhole she talks with her father, and her mother says her jewels are gone. Roza tries to pick the lock with her sister's silver hair clip and fails. In the morning Elvis and Ares bring tea, bread and honey («no poison»). When Ares comes to collect the tray, Roza hits him with the tray and a vase, takes the key and runs with Layla; they pass the boiler room and drop into the kitchen, where Elvis meets them. Roza holds a knife, and Elvis says «do you want to be a killer a second time?»: Ares is alive and not the dying kind. Ares grabs Layla, Layla bites him, Elvis throws the knife at Ares to test his reflexes and both laugh.
Roza and Layla are returned to their cabins, and her father scolds Roza. When Elvis asks for the key, Roza says she lost it; Elvis knows it is a lie but lets her keep it on one condition: «I want you to read me that book». On the third night Ares calls Roza to Elvis. Elvis sits in the ship owner's study smoking; the book is an English-language novel by Emily Brontë, and Elvis cannot read English. In return he promises to give the book back and let Alvin out of his cabin. Roza says «don't tell my family» and Elvis answers «this is our secret».
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