I had accompanied Lord Ramsey, God rest his soul, to Eastbourne, the quaint seaside summer home of his friend and colleague Mr. My own survival is due not to mercy but to the twisted whimsy of the beast they call Captain Mabbot. Even now my hand, which can lift a cauldron with ease, trembles at the memory.īut I must record while my recollections are fresh, for I cannot be sure that any of the other witnesses were spared. To see my employer, as true and honest a gentleman as England ever sired, so brutally murdered, without the opportunity to defend himself, by the very criminals he had striven so ardently to rid the world of, was a shock I can hardly bear. I use a soiled towel for my ablutions, the very towel that was on my person when I was cruelly kidnapped just days ago. My anxiety provokes a terrible need to relieve myself, but my chamber pot threatens to spill with every lurch of this damned craft.

Sleep is impossible the swells churn my stomach, and my heart scrambles to free itself from my throat. Meanwhile, I am taking refuge in these blank pages, to make note of my captors’ physiognomy and to list their atrocities that they might be brought properly to justice, but most of all to clear my head, for it is by God’s mercy alone that I have not been driven mad by what I have seen and endured. I have no intention of cooperating for long indeed, I hope to have a plan of escape soon. I have been afforded a quill and a logbook only after insisting that measurement and notation are crucial to the task before me. The nub of a candle casts quaking light on my damp chamber. Bespeckled with blood, surrounded by enemies, and bound on a dark course whose ultimate destination I cannot fathom-I am not brave. 'synopsis' may belong to another edition of this title. But there is a method to Mabbot's madness, and as the Flying Rose races across the ocean, Wedgwood learns to rely on the bizarre crew members he once feared: a formidable giant who loves to knit a pair of stoic martial arts masters, sworn to defend their captain and the ship's deaf cabin boy, who becomes the son he never had.Īn anarchic tale of love and appetite, Eli Brown's Cinnamon and Gunpowder is a wildly original feat of the imagination, deep and startling as the sea itself. Hunted by a deadly privateer and plagued by a saboteur, she pushes her crew past exhaustion in her search for the notorious Brass Fox. While Wedgwood attempts to satisfy his captor with feats such as tea-smoked eel and pineapple-banana cider, he realizes that Mabbot herself is under siege. He will be spared, Mad Hannah Mabbot tells him, as long as he can conjure an exquisite meal every Sunday from the ship's meager supplies. The year is 1819, and the renowned chef Owen Wedgwood has been kidnapped by a beautiful yet ruthless pirate.

Cinnamon and gunpowder by eli brown