User blog comment:Captain Dashing/Any good pirate novels?/@comment-80.5.57.185-20130121085725

1. Mark Keatings' The Pirate Devlin series ( comprised of 4 novels ) is a favourite of mine. The series is about a former Irish Navy sailor who joins a crew of pirates when his ship is attacked. He soon becomes a pirate captain in his own right and meets a few historical pirates along the way from Charles Vane to Blackbeard.

2. Helen Hollick's Sea Witch series ( again comprised of 4 novels ) is another favourite. It is about a Jack Sparrow-esque pirate named Jesamiah Acorne who falls in love with a Cornish white witch called Tiola Oldstagh. Again this series has some historical characters in it like Woodes Rogers, Henry Jennings and the dreaded Blackbeard. Also in the series is the sea goddess Tethys who has an eye for Acorne herself.

3. Celia Rees' novel Pirates is a good one as well. It is about a the daughter of a deceased Bristolian merchant who befriends a mulatto slave girl on a Jamaican plantation. The two girls run away and - after a stay with a camp of maroons - join a crew of pirates. Quite a few historical pirates are mentioned and the girls have a skirmish with real-life pirate Ned Low. The main antagonist is a former pirate - Bartolomeo the Brazilian - who sails a ship similar to the Black Pearl.

4. Geraldine McCaughrean's novel Plundering Paradise is about pirates in Madagascar. I personally think that any future PotC film should feature Madagascar as it was a proper Pirate island. The books tells the story of schoolboy Nathan Gull who - along with his sister Maud - goes with a mulatto pirate's son Tamo White to Madagascar, encountering native Malagasies and a crew of muderous pirates led by "King" Samson.