Fire Sword & Sea

Title: Fire Sword and Sea

Author: Vanessa Riley

Genre: fiction historical

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Spoiler warning: This reflection discusses major events from the book.

In Fire Sword and Sea by Vanessa Riley, a historical fiction novel inspired by Jacquotte Delahaye, we follow a mixed-race woman who became a pirate in the Caribbean.

Summary: Jacquotte is the daughter of a white tavern owner and a Black woman who was enslaved and set herself and her daughter free on her own. From a young age, Jacquotte is someone who fights for justice, especially when it comes to the enslavement and mistreatment of Black people and women. She is also adventurous and determined to live life on her own terms. More than anything, it is her dream to become a pirate, something women were not allowed to do during this time, but Jacquotte finds a way to make it happen by any means necessary.

What I enjoyed most about this book was following Jacquotte’s adventures and watching her constantly reflect on the decisions she made. She was a strong character, but the book did not allow her to move through life without consequences. Many of her choices resulted in loss and grief and we see her carry the weight of those experiences throughout the story.

The battle scenes were probably my least favorite part. I know they were necessary since this is a book about pirates, but at times I found myself confused by what was happening and less interested in those sections. I was much more invested in Jacquotte as a person and in understanding what motivated her.

One question I kept coming back to was why Jacquotte wanted to be a pirate so badly.

I understood her love of sailing and the ocean, her ability with a sword, the camaraderie she found among her crew and her desire to fight against the slave trade. But I still found myself wondering how she viewed the other side of piracy: invading vulnerable places and stealing from others. Throughout the book, it seemed as though she was more comfortable taking from people she believed deserved it, which made her relationship with piracy more complicated than simply wanting treasure or adventure.

“If you keep striving, you’re bound to win- or at least find peace within yourself. Keep trying. That’s what the best pirates do.”

Something else that stood out to me was the presence of fire throughout the story, especially during moments when Jacquotte experienced major loss.

There is the tavern fire connected to the deaths of her father and her friend Sarah, who started the fire in an attempt to kill the men who had harmed them. Later, Lizzôa dies during a fire aboard a ship. Jacquotte eventually creates another fire herself when she burns down the monks’ building after discovering that her mute brother, whom she had been paying them to care for, had instead been used as a slave and sold into slavery. Fire almost felt like a marker of grief throughout Jacquotte’s life. Each time it appeared, something or someone she loved was being taken from her, or she was responding to a loss she could not undo.

My biggest wow moment, though, was Jacquotte and Lizzôa. Jacquotte spends part of her life disguising herself as a man in order to move through a world where women were not given the same freedoms. Then we learn that Lizzôa, the woman Jacquotte falls in love with, is actually a man who has been disguising himself as a woman. I loved that reveal because their disguises did not change their love for one another. They had fallen in love with the person underneath all of it.

I enjoyed that Fire Sword and Sea gave me an opportunity to imagine a perspective I do not often encounter in historical fiction: what life could have looked like for a Black woman determined to become a pirate in a world that was not designed to give her freedom.

- Maya & The Spine Down