‘A rollicking triumph of passion, filled with desire, ambition, bravery and soul, and confirms O’Connor as one of Ireland’s leading historical novelists.’ Elaine Feeney
‘A wonderful, buoyant tale, sublimely imagined and beautifully told.’ Donal Ryan
Bestselling and award-winning Irish author, Nuala O’Connor, returns with the intimate and thrilling portrayal of the life of 18th-century Irishwoman, Anne Bonny.
1703, Kinsale, County Cork. Anne Coleman is the illegitimate child of a local lawyer and his maid; disguised as ‘Anthony’ to protect reputations, the mask suits Anne just fine. But, fixated on boats and the sea, she struggles to fit in, and her devoted mother fears for her fiercely independent and impulsive daughter.
When their secrets are exposed, the family emigrates to the new colony of Carolina, but this fresh start will bring devastating loss and stifling responsibilities. Lonely and transgressive, Anne finds comfort only with Bedelia, servant and intimate friend. But her craving for the sea-wandering life and a misjudged marriage to young Gabriel Bonny will compel Anne to take to the sea again, this time around the islands of the Caribbean, famous for plunder and piracy.
Adventure, passion and freedom await, but so do violence and disappointment. And, as she tries to stay true to herself, her hopes and her few precious friendships, Anne Bonny must also face her own privilege and the sacrifices required for enduring love.
Seaborne is the thrilling and sensuous portrait of a young woman out of step with her time and place, but never her heart.
About the Author :
NUALA O’CONNOR is a novelist, short story writer and poet, and lives in Co. Galway with her family. Nuala holds a BA in Irish from Trinity College Dublin and a Masters in Translation Studies (Irish/English) from Dublin City University. She is the author of five previous novels, including Nora (New Island & Harper Perennial, 2021), Becoming Belle (2018) and Miss Emily (2015), and six short story collections, her most recent being Joyride to Jupiter (New Island, 2017). She has won many prizes for her short fiction, including the Francis MacManus Award, the James Joyce Quarterly Fiction Contest and the UK’s Short Fiction Journal Prize.
Nuala’s work has also been nominated for numerous prizes including the Edge Hill Short Story Prize, the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year Award, the Irish Book Awards Novel of the Year and the International Dublin Literary Award. Nora was shortlisted for the An Post Irish Book Awards, the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year, the Dalkey Novel of the Year Award, RTÉ Audience Choice Award and named as a Top 10 2021 historical novel by the New York Times. Nora was also the One Dublin One Book choice for 2022. Nuala curated the 2022 exhibition at MoLI, ‘—Love, Says Bloom’, on the Joyce family, for #Ulysses100. She is editor-in-chief at flash e-zine Splonk.
Review :
Seaborne is another fine example of the historical novelist’s art, an admirable feat of imagination. O’Connor’s Anne has a fluid identity from the start… Anne emerges as not only a feminist and even a gender-fluid hero, but a hero to anyone for whom the dream of freedom remains.
Seaborne is 'a vivid portrait of a complicated woman, both of her time ... and in advance of it. This is an astonishingly sensual book ... Anne's sexuality is depicted with refreshing frankness; she takes it for granted that she can be attracted to all sorts of people ... those looking for a beautifully written portrait of an extraordinary woman in wild and windswept times will be richly rewarded. The ocean runs through every line of this fantastic book; after turning the pages, you feel as if you might taste salt water on your fingers.'
With Seaborne she really hits her stride, bringing Anne Bonny to life as a lively, lusty and complicated woman ... O'Connor does a convincing job of revealing Anne's vanished world and private thoughts with the sheer power of her imagination. Historical nuances are seamlessly woven into the narrative ... She has such a musical ear for language - you can tell that O'Connor is a poet too ... This is as swashbuckling a tale as you could hope for. Anne Bonny leaps off the pages in all her fiery glory and O'Connor shows us once again how a brilliant novelist can resurrect a whole life.
Seaborne is a superb novel, bursting with a buzzing vitality and sensuality. O’Connor has captured a time and place with an outstanding clarity. A powerful and remarkable portrayal, Seaborne is an exuberant and passionate novel, a cracking adventure and a fascinating insight into the life of a legend.
For NORA
'O'Connor succeeds in rendering Nora and Jim as three-dimensional humans with the same frailties and foibles as the rest of us.'
For NORA
'This fictional Nora is entirely convincing in her raw sensuality, her stubborn determination, her powerful sense of grievance and her inability to stop loving a deeply erratic, wildly manipulative yet enormously talented man.’
This is a dazzling novel. It seems nearly cliché to describe a book as a ‘beach read’, especially a book so concerned with the tides, but O’Connor’s Seaborne is the perfect accompaniment to an escape from the everyday.
This summer readers are going to fall in love with Anne; she’s the ultimate bisexual pirate icon Irish fiction has been waiting for.
