Magic Marks the Spot
The Very Nearly Honorable League of Pirates: Book One
by Caroline Carlson ’02
HarperCollins Children’s Books, September 2013
Hilary Westfield has always dreamed of being a pirate. She can tread water for 37 minutes. She can tie a knot faster than a fleet of sailors. She particularly enjoys defying authority, and she already owns a rather pointy sword. There’s only one problem: The Very Nearly Honorable League of Pirates refuses to let any girl join their ranks of scourges and scallywags.
But Hilary is not the kind of girl to take no for an answer. To escape a life of petticoats and politeness at her stuffy finishing school, Hilary sets out in search of her own seaworthy adventure, where she gets swept up in a madcap quest involving a map without an X, a magical treasure that likely doesn’t exist, a talking gargoyle, a crew of misfit scallywags, and the most treacherous—and unexpected—villain on the High Seas.
Caroline Carlson’s rollicking first novel is interspersed with letters, newspaper clippings, and excerpts from the official Very Nearly Honorable League of Pirates handbook. Written for young readers—ages 8 through 12—Magic Marks the Spot is the first installment in the Very Nearly Honorable League of Pirates trilogy. Books 2 and 3 are forthcoming in 2014 and 2015.