The Bradsher Beat Thursday, October 1, 2014 By Bethany Bradsher

Book series has pirate history ties

Disclosure from the editor: Sara Whitford, the author of the book series previewed in this article by Bethany Bradsher, is the daughter of Danny Whitford, executive publisher of Bonesville Media and the editor of this web site.

By Bethany Bradsher
©2015 Bonesville.net
All rights reserved.

When the time seemed right to pen her first book, Sara Whitford spun a setting and some character scenarios from her abiding passion for North Carolina coastal history and her own family’s genealogy.

With many important details in place – a story set between the French and Indian War and the American Revolution, a protagonist laboring in an apprenticeship in the port town of Beaufort, a few pirate tales spun in for good measure – Whitford needed the perfect main character.

Enter Adam Fletcher, an impetuous teenage boy with enough flaws to fall into a web of misadventures and enough goodness to keep readers pulling for him.

The Smuggler’s Gambit, the first installment in the Adam Fletcher Adventure Series and Whitford’s maiden voyage as an author, sets Adam’s personal journey into adulthood as an apprentice to a respected old shipping merchant against the backdrop of colonial America’s uncertain political climate. Whitford calls the novel a labor of love, but she has been taken aback by the response from readers far and wide, ranging from her Carteret County neighbors to book lovers as far away as Australia.

“I didn’t expect people to be as excited about it as they were,” she said. “This is just a story I wanted to tell. It’s very encouraging.”

Fans of The Smuggler’s Gambit include Horatio Sinbad, a well-known pirate re-enactor in Eastern North Carolina and an owner of a tall ship ported in Beaufort.

“Sara Whitford has successfully woven a fast-moving adventure of intrigue, romance, deception, and betrayal,” Sinbad wrote in his endorsement of the novel.

In a plot element Whitford likes to keep under wraps as a surprise for readers, one of the characters in The Smuggler’s Gambit reveals a connection to Blackbeard, the legendary pirate with strong ties to coastal Carolina. An avid student of regional history, Whitford has written non-fiction articles in the past debunking common myths about Blackbeard. Her venture into authorship brought another coveted endorsement from Kevin Duffus, the author of The Last Days of Black Beard the Pirate.

“I found this well-researched, finely-crafted tale to be altogether plausible,” Duffus said. “No doubt, this book will leave you yearning to find out what's next for Adam Fletcher."

For Duffus and other readers left wondering what adventures Adam has in store at the end of The Smuggler’s Gambit, Whitford just released Captured in the Caribbean, the second book in the Adam Fletcher series. She was not originally planning to write multiple installments, but early in the process of sketching out the first novel she realized one book couldn’t contain the whole story.

“As I plotted the first book, I started with index cards and the trajectory for Adam,” she said. “At first I thought, oh, this will be a good book, but then I realized I had so many scenes there was no way it was going to be just one novel.”

Another surprising development for Whitford was the evolution of her characters as she wrote – their tendency to embody their personality so fully that the characters seemed to dictate the dialogue and action. Adam was more talkative and headstrong than she expected him to be, she said, but as she let him react to other characters and make decisions she found it easier to let his adventures unfold.

Whitford maps out her plot before she writes, but even with careful planning she has learned to go with instinct at times. For instance, she has not yet decided how many books will be included in the Adam Fletcher Adventure Series.

“I think I’m just going to write them until I feel like I'm done telling stories about these characters. Then, I suppose I'll move on to write about something else,” she said.

Even though the book's protagonist starts out as a teenager, readers of all ages have reached out to Whitford to let her know how much they enjoyed the book, she said. Through promotional efforts with social media, solid reviews on websites such Goodreads and Amazon, as well as good old-fashioned word of mouth, Whitford has already been given the opportunity to share Adam Fletcher’s journey with a larger and more varied audience than she ever imagined.

The Kindle versions of The Smuggler's Gambit and Captured in the Caribbean are on sale for 99¢ each at Amazon.com from October 1, 2015 through October 7, 2015. If you're looking for a Christmas gift idea, signed print editions are available at the book series website.

Get The Smuggler's Gambit (Kindle edition) for 99¢ here: http://www.amazon.com/Smugglers-Gambit-Adam-Fletcher-Adventure-ebook/dp/B00TNQ0HFU/

Get Captured in the Caribbean (Kindle edition) for 99¢ here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B011W00YZW

Order signed copies of the print editions here: http://adamfletcherseries.com/order-signed-copies/

E-mail Bethany Bradsher

PAGE UPDATED 10/01/15 03:51 AM.