At the beginning of this book, Peter Blood is sticking to his plan of abandoning his life of adventure and becoming a physician. This resolution is destroyed when he goes to tend the wounds of a rebel and is arrested, subjected to a sham trial and sold into slavery. Thus cast back into a life of action and adventure, Peter leads a band of slaves in escaping, seizes a Spanish boat and becomes a pirate. But despite his new role as a buccaneer, the memory of Arabella Bishop (his ex-master’s niece), causes him to retain his honor. What will happen when, in a chance reunion, his love is spurned by the woman enshrined in his heart?
After friends lent us an old black-and-white film of this story (it was part of the Errol Flynn collection), I was excited to find the book available for free on my kindle. I was even more excited to find that the book and movie matched each other perfectly for quite a long time. After a while, the book began sharing adventures not shown in the movie. The third quarter of the story dragged a bit, but over all the story trotted right a long with the distinct style of an old-fashioned adventure novel. Both style and story bear some resemblance to The Scarlet Pimpernel and The Prisoner of Zenda, yet the tale is unique from both.
Author: Rafael Sabatini
Audience: Young Adult–Adult
Genre: Adventure
Pages: 296
What’s your favorite old-fashioned adventure story?
Leah E. Good 