The Pirate Queen by Ariel Lawhon

A thrilling historical adventure, inspired by the life of Grace O’Malley, channels the natural beauty and brutality of sixteenth-century Ireland. Seen through the eyes of an unforgettable heroine, the infamous Irish sea captain and folk heroine who risked everything to protect her people against the powerful Elizabethan regime.

Grace O'Malley, ‘the Pirate Queen of Ireland’, was born to be at sea. Raised alongside her brother by their father, chief of the name of clan O'Malley, Grace learns early that her dreams of the open water are not compatible with the life she's expected to lead as the daughter of a noble family. And when her father marries her to the wrong man, a neighbouring chief named Donhal, Grace's world shifts for the worse.

Undaunted, Grace raises a family without abandoning her passion, aiding her hot-tempered husband in his campaigns against rival tribes. Eventually ousted from her husband's land in the wake of his death, Grace returns to her childhood home and begins her career as a pirate in earnest, claiming new territories and finding deeper love, only to see her livelihood threatened by English incursions into Ireland, and her family endangered in an attempt to check her power.