Monday Give Away!
Because I’ve been lazy about If You Like… and because we need some cheering up on Mondays… and because I have wonderful author friends with books coming out… welcome to Monday Give Aways!
For the next few weeks, we’re going to be having a series of Monday give aways. There’ll be a new book every Monday.
To kick off our series, we have a copy of The Rebel Pirate, by the inimitable Donna Thorland.
Here’s the official blurb:
1775, Boston Harbor. James Sparhawk, Master and Commander in the British Navy, knows trouble when he sees it. The ship he’s boarded is carrying ammunition and gold…into a country on the knife’s edge of war. Sparhawk’s duty is clear: confiscate the cargo, 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 never set out to break the law. Before Boston became a powder keg, she was poised to escape the stigma of being a notorious pirate’s daughter by wedding Micah Wild, one of Salem’s most successful merchants. Then a Patriot mob destroyed her fortune and Wild played her false by marrying her best friend and smuggling a chest of Rebel gold aboard her family’s ship.
Now branded a pirate herself, Sarah will do what she must to secure her family’s safety and her own future. Even if that means taking part in the cat and mouse game unfolding in Boston Harbor, the desperate naval fight between British and Rebel forces for the materiel of war—and pitting herself against James Sparhawk, the one man she cannot resist.
I’ve been lamenting for a while the lack of true swash and buckle in fiction. Aside from William Dietrich’s Ethan Gage series, no one has really taken on the mantle of Sabatini– so I’m so grateful to Donna, for, as she puts it, going “far into Sabatini territory”.
For a copy of The Rebel Pirate, here’s your question:
Who’s your favorite swashbuckler?
(Books and movies are both acceptable.)
One winner will be chosen at random from among the comments. Winner to be announced on Wednesday!
If you don’t win, fear not: The Rebel Pirate appears in bookstores tomorrow, March 4.
Stay tuned for more Monday give aways, including Tracy Grant’s The Berkeley Square Affair, Bee Ridgway’s The River of No Return, and Beatriz Williams’s The Secret Life of Violet Grant.
I’ll have to go with D’Artagnan and Athos, from Dumas’ novel The Three Musketeers…. D’Artagnan for his youth and his boldness, Athos… for his past and his feelings…
Hmmm. I would have to go with the Scarlet Pimpernel, although I am not quite sure he quite fits this category. But, it seems to me, he has a lot of swash and buckle!
Wesley from the Princess Bride! (Or Indigo)
Captain Blood from Rafael Sabatini’s classic swashbuckling novel of the same name.
The Dread Pirate Roberts, obvs.
Robin Hood- swashbuckler of the forest! Or either the Errol Flynn or Jonas Armstrong variety 🙂
CAPTAIN Jack Sparrow!
Does Captain Jack Sparrow count?
I think he is quite extraordinary…and not just because he is played by Johnny Depp in the movie! LOL
I liked Linda Chaikin’s Buccaneer’s series.
D’Artagnan!! He’s the dandiest swashbuckler of them all 🙂
My favorite? Hmm, either Captain Jack Sparrow, or perhaps Jacky Faber from that YA series I loved as a kid.
Inigo Montoya – Princess Bride!
I have to agree that it’s a tie between Sir Percy Blakeney, Baronet, and the Dread Pirate Roberts. All the others are fine swashbucklers but don’t have the panache as these two.
Westley/Dread Pirate Roberts from “The Princess Bride” or Robin Hood as played by Errol Flynn in “The Adventures of Robin Hood.” Both were fabulous, with their devil-may-care attitudes & excellent swordplay!
Captain Blood! Errol Flynn so swoonworthy!
The farm boy will always be my favorite…
I think it is a toss up between Errol Flynn’s Captain Blood and Anthony Andrews as the Scarlet Pimpernel. Both are to die for. And their book characters are pretty wonderful, too!
Robin Hood, any version. The Three Musketeers + D’Artagnan, of course. The Scarlet Pimpernel, naturally. Aaaaaaaaand Amy from The Secret History of the Pink Carnation, who is not really a typical swashbuckler because she is a girl and not particularly piratical, BUT has all the romantic, adventurous, trouble-making and charming qualities that the BEST swashbucklers possess.
Endmond Danres’ Sinbad the Sailor in The Count of Monte Cristo.
Yes, I posted this from my phone during a meeting. Edmond Dantes.
🙂
I love the Scarlet Pimpernel and almost any swashbuckler played by Errol Flynn!
Wesley from The Princess Bride.
The Dread Pirate Roberts – The Princess Bride
Or
The Purple Gentians butler, when the mood strikes him.
Sir Percy Blakeney, of course!
Westley from Princess Bride, “As you wish!”
Sir Percy Blakeney, and the Three Musketeers! Agreed with Ella on the Purple Gentian’s butler as well.
Also, how could I forget Miss Gwen Meadows?
Captain Jack Sparrow. I love a little humor with my swash and buckle.
Wesley form Princess Bride and Capt.Jack Sparrow
I have to go with Capt Jack Sparrow !!, or else Captain Hook!
Older movies Errol Flynn in Robin Hood and Tyrone Power in Black Swan and more recently Orlando Bloom and Capt. Jack Sparrow in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies.
How can I not say The Scarlet Pimpernel himself?!
Robin Hood-as played by Cary Elwes
Errol Flynn from Captain Blood, for sure
Sir Francie Drake, of course, for a real life swashbuckler. But if I have to choose a book/movie character I vote for Scarlet Pimpernel (Anthony Andrews)or Richard, the Purple Gentian!
Would really love this book! Thanks for the chance!
I should also have mentioned ‘the Frenchman’, Jean-Benoit Aubery in Daphne DuMaurier’s Frenchman’s Creek which I reread last fall. A truly romantic swashbuckler!
I am a sucker for a romance novel with a pirate theme. The first one to come to my mind is James who becomes a pirate in Eloisa James’s The Ugly Duchess.
Captain don Diego Alatriste, from the Alatriste series by the Spanish author Arturo Pérez Reverte 🙂
So many good choices mentioned already! I’ve always been partial to the more straight-laced of the swashbucklers, though, so my votes go to Will Turner (POTC) and Horatio Hornblower (book and miniseries versions). Reckless when in pursuit of love and duty, fierce and clever.
I’m on Team Captain Jack Sparrow. Love that guy.
Definitely Charlotte Doyle, teenage swashbucklette, from The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle by Avi. Reading about how she adapted to a bad situation really inspired me when I was that age. I found a kindred spirit in how much spunk she had!
My favourite swashbuckler is Jane Wooliston from Pink Carnation.
She may not wield the proverbial sword, but her mind is lethal like that of a sharp blade as she strategizes against those who spread evil and mayhem!
She embodies the spirit of the romantic adventurer with great flair and isn’t that the definition of a swashbuckler.
I love the Scarlet Pimpernel and Wesley from the Princess Bride
Leonie from These Old Shades
I am on team Jack Sparrow, too.
I really like Shana Galen’s pirate adventures, too.
Lord Nicholas Martingale is my favorite pirate in her books!!
My favourites are Rupert Of Henzau in The Prisoner Of Zenda, yes I know he was the villan but he did it with such style, and Sir Francis Drake as I am related to him.
My great great grandmother was one Louisa Drake and she was descended from one Francis’s brothers. I can’t remember his name but he died young at sea and Francis apparently made sure his children were looked after. If he hadn’t I wouldn’t be here. It is amazing the people you find in your family tree if you go back far enough!
Thanks for the interesting information, Suzanne, as Sir Francis Drake was my favorite. It’s quite something to read about family loyalty that I think was more in evidence in times past. There is a folk song about one Francis Martin who “turned pirate on the salt seas” after drawing lots with his two brothers to see who would go to sea to support the family – don’t know if this song is based on any truth as I haven’t researched it. However, it was great to hear about your family connection. Thanks for sharing.
Betty,
My mother traced the family tree for about 15 years before we found the connection. It had always been family legend but we couldn’t prove it before. She traced down from Francis’s family to a point in the mid 19th century, then our family back almost that far. Then we went to England and found it in the shape of a gravestone in Burley, Rutlandshire. Had there been anybody else there they would have thought we were completely nuts jumping up and down and having hysterics in a lonely cemetery in the middle of nowhere!
That is so exciting – glad you found it!
Cary Elwes as Robin Hood!
I am reading Danelle Harmon’s Heroes of the Sea series and am all about swashbuckling right now. I think I Will go with The Pirate Queen’s Sir Graham. But the pirate queen of the Caribbean herself, Maeve Merrick, is pretty “swash.”
Congratulations, Paige. I looked up the series you mentioned and definitely want to get into that!
Wesley from the Princess Bride for old-school swashbuckler, and Indiana Jones for a more modern swashbuckler.
I really love Gentle Rogue by Johanna Lindsey… James Mallory is such a great character! Also I really love the whole Mallory series!
Zorro. He never gets old and never seems to go out of style.
The Scarlet Pimpernel as played on stage by either Douglas Sills or Ron Bohmer. Nothing like being able to get a hug from Percy Blakeney himself at the stage door.
Frederic from Pirates of Penzance. I like a swashbuckler with a tenor voice. 🙂
Me, too! (Even if he is just a little boy of five.)
As a die-hard GH fan, the first thing that came to mind was Jack Carstares in The Black Moth. Of course then I thought of Errol Flynn in his many sword wielding roles, and the 1930s Scarlet Pimpernel, Leslie Howard. I can’t make up my mind.
I have to say the book version of the Scarlet Pimpernel!
Wesley, the Dread Pirate Roberts.
Beauvallet, from Georgette Heyer!
Grace O’Malley for real pirate (Irish pirae that heckled Elizabeth 1)
And tie between Westley and Captain Jack Sparrow