A 'Cape Fear return': Brunswick author's latest book mixes piracy and romance

"Miss MacKenzie, are you really a pirate?"

Rule Number 1 in the How to Write Best Sellers course is to grab your readers with a catchy first sentence. In that case, give John Palmer an A.

Palmer, a part-time Brunswick County resident, has penned "Return to Cape Fear," a swashbuckling yarn of piracy and romance.

Miss MacKenzie is Anne MacKenzie, a bright young woman who grew up messing about on family boats on the Brunswick coastline.

She seems on course for a high-flying law career in New York City, but a high-stakes poker game wrecks these plans. So, Anne -- "Bonnie Annie," her grandfather called her -- winds up back in Southport, catching odd maritime jobs.

An old acquaintance -- as turns out, the same cad who rigged that crooked poker game -- hires Anne to sail a yacht from Freeport in the Bahamas to Florida.

Little does she know that the boat was stolen and the family that owned it massacred. What happens is a virtual Nantucket sleigh ride, in which Anne must cope with the elements, the Russian mafia and stolen diamonds.

Needless to say, pirate themes run through the text. Give yourself extra points if you spotted the connection between "Bonnie Annie" and Anne Bonny, the lady pirate who sailed the Caribbean in the early 1700s. And the climax takes place near that spot on the Brunswick coast where authorities finally caught up with the pirate Stede Bonnet.

Which isn't to say that "Return to Cape Fear" is smooth sailing. Like a lot of self-published authors, Palmer could have used some better editing and maybe an extra draft or two. The text is weighted down by excess back story, ham-footed dialogue and excess adjectives.

Still Palmer has come up with quite a yarn and a happy ending to boot.

Book review

Return to Cape Fear: Life and Love Interrupted

By John Palmer

Self-published, $12.99 paperback

This article originally appeared on Wilmington StarNews: In 'Return to Cape Fear,' Brunswick author mixes piracy and romance