Hi guys! We have Jules Radcliffe stopping by today with her new release Pirate Master, we have a brilliant guest post, a great excerpt and a fantastic $10 Amazon GC giveaway, so guys check out the post and enter the giveaway! ❤️ ~Mel~

Pirate Master

Jules Radcliffe

A strait-laced lieutenant. A free-living pirate. A hopeless love.

Quinn has never met a man quite like Perry. Stern and cold on the outside, burning up inside with secret passion. Yearning for a mastery only Quinn can satisfy. But Perry is no outcast—he’s a respectable officer in His Majesty’s navy. Reluctant to test his love for a pirate, Quinn baulks at asking him to give up everything he holds dear.

Though he has no regrets about their night of glorious sin, Perry sees no future with Quinn. Unlike the pirates of Port Royal, he isn’t free to love where he pleases. If word of his illicit affair came to the ears of Commodore Pobjoy, his career would be at an end. And the disgrace might mean he could never return home to England.

With war on the horizon, the Caribbean is a hotbed of intrigue. Quinn is betrayed and thrown into Monte Gris, an impregnable dungeon even the fearsome Brethren of the Coast aren’t strong enough to breach. Perry is stunned. Everything he valued is hollow and meaningless without his master.

Willing to risk all to get Quinn back, he refuses to abandon hope and plots a daring and dangerous rescue. But he can’t do it alone. He’ll need every scrap of ingenuity at his disposal to persuade the Black Wolf and the crew of the Audacious that his plan will work.

This time, it’s not just Perry’s career and reputation at stake. If he fails, men will die. And both he and Quinn will suffer a gruesome fate at the hands of a terrifying acolyte of the Spanish Inquisition.

Warnings: Rape and torture of a MC off screen, murder of minor characters

Jules Radcliff!

How the Pirates of Port Royal series came about

I’ve always been a history/fantasy nerd, and while I devoured modern books like the Harry Potter series, Treasure Island was my favourite book as a kid. The Lord of the Rings and the Pirates of the Caribbean movies fuelled many of my nerd fantasies, but I also adored classic adventure movies, especially ones starring Errol Flynn. ‘Captain Blood’ was the first film I recall falling in love with, and I could never decide if I loved it or ‘Robin Hood’ more.

When I started writing romance in 2014, I wanted to do a pirate story, but I was busy with the Love’s Pursuit series. I had a pirate name in my head—the Black Wolf—but he had to take a back seat for a while. Then, in 2016, I settled down to learn more about him. I discovered his real identity—he was a gentleman with a minor title and a friend of Charles II. And because of that, my era was chosen—the 1660s.

I wrote some backstory on how a gentleman came to be a pirate:

As a younger son, the Black Wolf was groomed for the navy. Before his career could progress, the Civil War intervened, and his family fled to Spain. But he’s unhappy living amongst England’s old enemies.

Knowing some Royalists fled to the Americas, he sails for Boston, but his ship is attacked by the Brethren of the Coast. Amongst the pirates is Tobias Varney, an old friend, who tells the Black Wolf they prey on English shipping as a way of defying the government of Oliver Cromwell. The Black Wolf decides to join them.

He and Toby head to Barbados to procure a ship and recruit crewmen from amongst the Irish prisoners who work the plantations. They meet and befriended the young Gabriel Quinn, exiled as a political prisoner after the Irish wars. Quinn persuades several of his fellow prisoners to help him steal their master’s ship and escape the plantation. These men make up the core of the eventual crew of the Audacious.

 

While writing this backstory, Quinn really caught my attention. I decided to write a short based around him. I had to give him a suitable mate—and just to fuck with him, I chose one who was his natural enemy. An Englishman, a devout Puritan, a man whose father fought under Cromwell in the Irish Wars. And so Thomas Peregrine, the Puritan pirate, was born.

The short, told purely from Perry’s point of view, grew into a novel, the second half of which was mostly told from Quinn’s point of view. I ended up splitting it into two novels, I called the second one Pirate Master. The title is self explanatory: Quinn, of course, is a master of sail, but he’s also Perry’s master in their power dynamic.

The other currently published book in the series is Pirate’s Promise, about Job. He’s been a cabin boy since he was kidnapped off the streets of Bristol, and hasn’t been ashore since. He’s rescued by the Audacious, where he learns how to live as the equal of any man aboard.

The Penitent Pirate, due out in August, and Pirate’s Revenge, due out later this year, are further adventures of Perry and Quinn. They rescue an abandoned baby, foil a plot to attack Jamaica, avenge old wrongs, and discover new secrets to help King Charles II.

Excerpt!

The faint chime of watch bells sounded. Perry, still nine parts asleep, automatically counted two and one.

Not yet time to rise.

He subsided back into his lover’s embrace. Recalling whose arms were wrapped strong around him, whose heart beat slow and steady under his ear, Perry smiled drowsily.

Sometime later, he woke alone, the bed beside him cold. Disappointment gripped him. But when he lifted his head, he saw a pair of boots, the tops sagging to one side, and a shirt and breeches hanging from a hook. Quinn’s clothing from last night. Wherever the master had gone, he could not be far.

Perry stretched out stiff arms and legs, and rubbed his tender arse in idle memory. Thinking of last night brought a grin to his face. He climbed from his bunk and stuck his head through the stern window.

The harbour was smooth and still, and other ships and boats were faint silhouettes in the predawn gloom. With only a handful of men aboard and the watch changeover at least an hour away, he took the chance no one would be wandering about this part of the ship. Naked but for his shirt, he dashed to the wardroom quarter gallery.

He peered into the little mirror nailed to the bulkhead. If he stood in the right spot, he could see his whole face in its burnished surface. He was surprised to see looked much the same. He touched the scar under his eye and traced down to his lips with light fingers. Mayhap the customary tightness in his face was eased.

The crew would tease him mercilessly for last night, but it was a price he was willing to pay. He wanted more of Quinn’s kisses, both the rough and the gentle. Never had he dreamed they would be lovers, not after so many months of crossing swords. It had taken him so long to come to his senses. Too long, he thought wistfully. Because one way or another, his time with the Brethren of the Coast was about to come to an end.

The news flying around the port came to his ears as soon as he set foot on land yesterday. Governor Modyford, newly appointed and on his way from Barbadoes, intended to honour King Charles’ new accord with Madrid. The market was abuzz with speculation. If the governor revoked the marques against the Spanish, would the Brethren ships change allegiance? Would they go to the French colonies of Saint-Domingue and Tortuga, or even to the Dutch in Curacao?

The Audacious might not abandon Port Royal, but Perry was still a lieutenant in the navy. He would still have to leave. Making peace with Spain was a clear sign that the English crown had made its decision—war with the Dutch Republic. Sooner or later Perry would be recalled, returned to England to defend home shores. Belike he would be given a command. Not even Commodore Pobjoy’s spite would stop him being promoted in a time of war.

For years, Perry had dreamed of being a captain. For months, he had pined to return home. At last, he was on the verge of having his ambitions granted. He sighed at the irony.

Because last night, Quinn made himself Perry’s master, and everything had changed.

The ambitions he had once aspired to, the blocks on which he had built his lonely existence, the things he had long accepted as his lot in life, all had collapsed like a house upon the sand. Now his greatest wish was to stay in the Caribbean and serve aboard the Audacious. Even if he never rose higher than second mate, he preferred that to being half a world away from Gabriel Quinn.

But his native caution warned him to be wary. Not to put too much stock into Quinn’s sweet words of possession.Their shared passion might be as ephemeral as a candle: burning bright whilst the night lasts, naught but a puddle of cold wax in the light of day.

After all, the sailing master could do better than a charmless nobody. Perry stared at himself in the mirror. Staring back was a man all of drabness: mousy hair, colourless eyes, bland features. And there were deeper things amiss with him, things beyond the power of a mirror to show: tongue-tied in company, lacking any gentlemanly refinement, ignorant and uneducated. What could a man like Quinn see in him?

A complete mess is what he’ll see if I don’t clean up. Perry smoothed down his wayward curls in an attempt to look less freshly fucked. He grimaced, an expression that landed somewhere between smug and rueful. Even if Quinn did not fuck him into disarray again this morning, erelong every pirate in Port Royal would know the sailing master of the Defiant had tamed the uptight Mr Perry-grin.

He filled the basin and stripped, splashing his body and dousing his head. He scrubbed vigorously, feeling an energising tingle all over. Some parts of himself, however, were very tender, and he dabbed the cold water carefully on those raw places.

The door creaked. Snatching up his shirt, he pivoted to put his back to the wall. Quinn stood in the doorway clad only in his drawers, his magnificent chest on display. Perry’s breath caught, and he was tempted to drop to his knees. Instead, he dropped his shirt. Quinn knew his scars; last night he had traced every one with tongue and finger. Perry felt no shame before him.

At this show of trust, he was rewarded with the master’s sensuous smile. He returned the smile shyly and turned back to the basin. He sluiced his torso, washing off the remnants of soap. A new excitement buzzed in his veins when he heard Quinn’s breeches drop to the floor. Arms slid about his waist, and his heartbeat kicked up. A naked chest pressed to his damp back, kisses marked his shoulders. A firm prick prodded his bare buttocks.

“’Tis dangerous for a pretty boy to be wandering naked around a pirate ship,” murmured Quinn into his neck, kissing and nibbling.

Tilting his head, Perry leaned back into the embrace. “Am I in danger, Master Quinn? Surely you’d not take advantage of a defenceless sailor lad.”

Quinn bent him forward. Hands on the bulkhead, he pushed back as a hard length slid between his thighs.

“Only when he’s as saucy a piece as you, Mr Peregrine. I’ll be taking advantage of you at every opportunity.”

About Jules!

From the time I learned to talk, I told stories. From the time I learned my letters, I wrote the stories down!

I love vintage items, from advertising posters and pulp fiction covers to Art Deco furniture to Victorian sex toys.

I’ve lived, studied, and worked in several countries, but I always return to Australia. My home is near the beach in Queensland, where I live with my unconventional family. But I miss the cold winters and often dream of sitting by a blazing fire on a snowy night.

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