The Pirate Queen

Ariel Lawhon | Paperback | June 2025

From the million-copy bestselling author of The Frozen River comes a thrilling story inspired by the life of an infamous Irish sea captain and folk heroine who risked everything to protect her people against the powerful Elizabethan regime.

Grace O’Malley was born to be at sea. Raised by her father, chief 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 a neighbouring chief, 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.

Channelling the natural beauty of sixteenth-century Ireland alongside the brutality of the period, Ariel Lawhon deftly explores an unforgettable heroine and defender of her people, who truly earned the title ‘the Pirate Queen of Ireland’.

'This propulsive 500-page book delivers a spirited, layered feminist historical chronicle of one woman who resists convention every step of the way.' New York Times