Our eight- and ten-year-old boys were in bed, teeth brushed and ready. Over the years, our family had managed to hang on to nightly reading, slowly working our way up from If You Give a Mouse a Cookie through the unabridged Robin Hood and Huckleberry Finn. The dogs each curled up on a kid’s bed, and the cat leapt onto the bureau.

Everyone settled, I cracked open the book. “Not every thirteen-year-old girl is accused of murder,” I read, “brought to trial, and found guilty.”

“What?” My ten-year-old shot straight up in bed. “This is a story about a girl?””

You’d think murder would have caught his attention.

“Just listen,” I said. “You’re gonna like this girl.”

It turned out to be an understatement. There was serious begging each night for more chapters as Charlotte sailed in 1832 from Liverpool to Providence, Rhode Island, the only female with a murderous crew. At times this novel was so bloody and vindictive and torturous, I had trouble reading it. But the delight and/or horror of every plot twist captivated us all.

Restored to the bosom of her loving family, Charlotte makes her final, shocking move, and I closed the book. Both boys were absolutely silent, satiated with a great story.

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