When Gay Vandeleur is divorced by her military husband in late Victorian London, she heads out to Halifax, Nova Scotia, to build a new life of romance and adventure with no strings attached (she's the "detached pirate" in the language of the period). But gossip is international, and as she experiences courtship and love in the small world of Halifax, she runs up against all the challenges of the "Traditional Woman" versus the "New Woman". Thrust into a series of irrevocable compromises, this intriguing heroine experiences both the low points and the high points of being a "New Woman" before romance rules the day. Lively, without self-pity, this is an entertaining read that keeps the reader engrossed right until the last page.

HELEN MILECETE, pseudonym of SUSAN (MORROW) JONES (1964-1926), grew up on the banks of the Northwest Arm in Halifax as part of a talented family. her sister, Helen (Morrow) Pasque Duffus was herself to become a writer, and her first cousins, Alice Jones and Frances (Jones) Bannerman, were an internationally-recognized novelist and artist respectively. Using various pseudonyms (S. Carleton, S. Carleton Jones, Helen Milecete), Susan Jones published many short stories in the United States and Britain, but is best remembered for a series of sprightly novels with titles as varied as "A Girl fo the North", "The Career of Mrs. Osborne", and "A Detached Pirate".

Helen Milecete's profile page

Gwendolyn Davies is an emerita professor of English and dean of graduate studies at the University of New Brunswick. She has published or edited six books and over sixty articles and book chapters on pre-1940 Atlantic literature and on the history of the book in Canada. Books include Studies in Maritime Literary History and a scholarly edition of Thomas McCulloch’s The Mephibosheth Stepsure Letters.

Gwendolyn Davies' profile page