Load the cannon and set sail with the pirates of the Phantom. Learn the backstory of Flora Burn, the girl who would one day blossom into the elusive pre-Revolutionary pirate captain of the same name. Her ties to the Church, the American Revolution, and a Louisiana governor are all revealed as she and her Uncle Guy struggle to melt into New Orleans society.

In escaping the poverty that plagued rural France, the sturdy teenage Guy Babineaux became a commodity traded between pirate captains. The combat he endured alongside his future first mates, Takuya and Harjit, made him lethal. But it was a young Ben Franklin who introduced him to the art of subterfuge. Now, captain of the Phantom, Guy and his crew systematically defraud Europe’s richest families of untold wealth. But just as they are forced to abandon European waters by the mercenaries and navies hunting them down, the pirates learn that Guy's six-year-old niece, Flora Burn, is in dire circumstances. Her mother has died and her father has become an impoverished, drunken gambler. Compelled to remove Flora from her appalling surroundings, the uncle and niece escape to New Orleans where they hope to lead normal lives. But before they can become established in America, Babineaux and his crew must first deal with Louis Misaro, a murderous casino owner and New Orleans’ greediest man. Louis and his closest business associates have a nasty habit of marrying wealthy heiresses, then having them imprisoned in a far-away tropical asylum. In a rivalry of criminal one-upmanship, the pirate crew is guided by a demon-hunting priest, Father Leroux, who appears to have returned from the Louisiana wilderness after a twenty year absence.

Meanwhile, young Flora plays matchmaker for her uncle who has fallen silently in love with a nun. While Flora simply revels in her uncle's antics, Sister Etta grows suspicious of the comings and goings of the newly arrived Captain Babineaux and the recently returned Father Leroux. Whether tormenting enemies or exorcising demons, the pirates believe their patroness, Saint Barbara, has made their captain invincible. But when an enemy from Guy's past frames teenage Flora for murder, her uncle is away at sea. Educated by the priests of New Orleans, and trained with weapons by retired pirates, Flora must survive a nightmarish ordeal. At a minimum, she must avoid being hung until her uncle returns from the Caribbean. Upon his return, Babineaux's enemies will learn the extremes to which he will go to assure that his niece fulfills her legacy as master of the Phantom.

Stephanie

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