One Virtue And A Thousand Crimes – Book Two – in progress
Many women of her time want protection or freedom. Cosma wants to be a pirate.
New Orleans, 1812. Cosma has survived Gallatin Street, violence, loss, and the rules other people wrote for her. But beneath it all, the sea keeps calling. To reach it, she must find a way into Jean Laffite’s world of smugglers and privateers – without simply exchanging one kind of captivity for another.
And I’ll let you know when The Ocean’s Calling is ready.
About The Ocean’s Calling
New Orleans, 1812.
Cosma Drilo has spent years becoming whatever survival demanded of her. Now she wants something no one around her seems prepared to understand.
The ocean.
Her father was a pirate. Cosma intends to become one too.
To get there, she needs Jean Laffite – the smuggler who insists he is a gentleman – and a place among men who have no intention of treating her as an equal. But the life Cosma wants cannot simply be sailed toward. Inspector Gilbert remains tangled in the death of her mother, the woman Cosma loves is bound to a world she cannot easily leave, and freedom begins to look considerably more complicated than an open horizon.
The farther Cosma reaches the sea, the harder the question becomes: what is she willing to leave behind to answer this call?
The Ocean’s Calling is the second installment in the One Virtue And A Thousand Crimes series and is currently in progress.
What you’ll find inside
A woman determined to choose her own life
Cosma has spent years surviving other people’s decisions. The sea represents something different: a life she has chosen herself.
Jean Laffite before the legend
Smuggler, businessman, would-be gentleman – and an increasingly complicated ally for a woman who refuses to behave as he expects.
Love, loyalty, and separation
Cosma’s relationships are not side decoration. Tourmaline, Gilbert, her mother, and the people she refuses to abandon shape what freedom will cost her.
New Orleans at the edge of war
Gallatin Street, the Mississippi, smugglers, political tension, violence and the approaching War of 1812 form the world around the characters.
Haven’t me Cosma yet?
The Adventuress introduces Cosma, Jean Laffite and the dangerous bargain that first draws her into his smuggling world.
History beneath the story
The Ocean’s Calling grows from the documented world of early nineteenth-century New Orleans: the Mississippi and Gulf trade, Jean and Pierre Laffite’s smuggling network, political tension, war, and a city shaped by overlapping French, Spanish, Carribbean, African and American influences.
Historical figures and events appear beside fictional characters such as Cosma, whose story explores lives much less neatly preserved in the historical record.
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FAQs
What is The Ocean’s Calling about?
The Ocean’s Calling follows Cosma in early nineteenth-century New Orleans as she attempts to leave the life others have shaped for her and pursue her ambition of becoming a pirate.
Is The OCean’s Calling available yet?
No. The novel is currently in progress. You can read a preview and join Mira’s reader list to hear when it is ready.
Should I read The adventuress first?
Not necessarily. The Adventuress is Jean Laffite’s perspective on Cosma and may give you a better understanding of their relationship dynamics.
Is The Ocean’s Calling a romance?
Relationships, love and sexuality play important roles in the story, but The Ocean’s Calling is primarily historical fiction and adventure rather than genre romance.
Is the book suitable for younger readers?
The novel is written for adults and deals with sexual exploitation, violence, trauma, discrimination and other difficult subjects.