1. What expectations did you have when you began reading the book? Were your expectations met? Were you disappointed with anything in the story?
2. What did you learn about the time period that you didn’t know before reading this book? What did you learn about how people lived and what life might have been like? Was there anything you didn’t understand (terms or social customs)? Was there anything you expected to see but didn’t?
3. In this story, there are a lot of hidden agendas and identities. In what ways did you see this happening and with which characters?
4. There is quite a bit of concern over Charlotte’s “ruined reputation” in this story—first from her disguising herself as a boy and living with the other midshipmen (in Ransome’s Crossing) and now from having been abducted by a pirate. Is reputation—what is known or assumed about someone’s background—as important today as it was then?
5. Charlotte shows once again that she’s willing to go against her family’s wishes to be with the man she loves. Would you be willing to do that?
6. Before the modern era, it wasn’t unusual for women to find themselves at the mercy of men around them. What were your thoughts on Julia’s interactions with Shaw? Could she have done more to protect herself? to protect James?
7. Captain Salvador considers himself a moral man, yet he also claims to be a pirate. In what ways did Salvador live up to the Christian morals of his family? In what ways did he betray those morals? What did you like about Salvador? What did you not like about Salvador? What would you have changed about him?
8. James Ransome reveals to William and Julia his jealousy over William’s “easy” rise through the ranks in the Royal Navy. Was James justified in his jealousy?
9. What did you think about the way in which Julia described God’s forgiveness to James—by comparing it to the way James’s mother loved and forgave him?
10. Read Luke 15:11-32. How is the parable of the prodigal son exemplified in this story?