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Monday, February 2, 2015

Review of LADY CASTAWAYS



Format:Kindle Edition|Verified Purchase
So-called "Reality" TV "survivor shows" pale in comparison to the accounts of real survivors -- especially as related by nautical historian, biographer and novelist, Joan Druett.

Druett is an authority on women aboard ships during the age of sail. Lady Castaways is a reprise of real accounts of shipwrecked women brought vividly to life in one collection. These stories bring to light the long-forgotten experiences of women on ill-fated sailing ships and are exciting, inspiring survival stories in themselves.

Joan Druett’s expertise in the subject of women aboard commercial sailing ships, generally as wives and assistants to their sea captain husbands, has been well established with her previous books, particularly Petticoat Whalers, Hen Frigates, and She Captains -- and numerous published articles. In Lady Castaways she further explores women on ships -- ill fated ships -- relating how they survived and contributed to the survival of others, based on first-hand accounts. Whalers, privateers, blockade runners, scientific missions, merchantmen and private trading vessels are all vividly portrayed.

Had these ships not been wrecked we would not have ever known the women were aboard and the role they played. The collection is valuable historically but more than that, it’s just good reading. Forget the staged, televised 21st century survival stories -- Joan Druett's well-documented Lady Castaways surpasses all of these and is far more impressive for being true.

-- Linda Collison, author of Barbados Bound and Surgeon's Mate; Patricia MacPherson Nautical Adventures.

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