Includes readers guide

"1775, Boston Harbor. The gold is Spanish, the sloop is American, and the captain is dead. James Sparhawk, master and commander in the British Navy, knows trouble when he sees it. The ship he's boarded is carrying ammunition for ballast and a fortune in foreign gold...into a country on the very knife's edge of war. Sparhawk's duty is clear: confiscate the bullion, impound the vessel, and seize the crew. But when one of the ship's boys turns out to be a lovely girl with a loaded pistol and dead-shot aim, Sparhawk finds himself held hostage aboard a Rebel privateer. Sarah Ward is no Rebel. Before the misfortune in Boston started, she was poised to escape the stigma of her piratical father by wedding Eli Darby, one of Salem's most successful merchants. Then a Patriot mob destroyed her fortune, and the pragmatic Darby decided to marry her best friend instead. The Charming Sally's voyage had been intended to restore the Ward wealth, but Darby has played her false again by smuggling a chest of Rebel gold aboard. Now branded a pirate herself, Sarah has no choice but to press on, recklessly tempted by her enigmatic captive, James Sparhawk, and facing a future as passionate as it is dangerous..."--