Joan Druett: 27 books

Wiki had been enjoying life in the East Indies and the South China Sea.  He could speak the local language, so had sailed happily on coastwise craft in the company of Bugis rogues and pirates. But then George Rochester had arrived on the Potomac, and while it had been delightful to get together with...

He was an expert navigator who drew a chart of the Pacific encompassing 2,500 miles and locating nearly 100 islands totally unknown to Europeans. This man was also a translator, an artist, a high priest, a brilliant orator, and a most devious politician. A European polymath? No, merely the greatest...

The fifth in the Wiki Coffin series find the U.S. Exploring Expedition off Cape Horn, a grim outpost made still more threatening by the report of a corpse on a drifting iceberg, closely followed by a gruesome death on board.  Was it suicide, or a particularly brutal murder?  Wiki investigates, only to find himself fighting desperately for his own life.

Wiki Coffin, linguist aboard the U.S. Exploring Expedition, the famous voyage meant to put America at the forefront of 19th century scientific discovery, brings many skills to his job. Whether he's translating native languages, assisting his good friend Captain George Rochester as unofficial first...

U.S. Exploring Expedition linguist Wiki Coffin sails with the famous convoy of ships toward Brazil, where he faces a whole new set of trials and tribulations, not the least being blamed for the sudden grave illness of a fellow crewman. But soon his own fate will be the least of his problems. As...

Wiki Coffin plays many parts on the U.S. Exploring Expedition---sailor, linguist, navigator, and, as half-Maori, cultural go-between. But then the brig Swallow reaches the coast of Patagonia, an area infamous for its rough gauchos and revolutionary spirit, and he must take on his other role, that...

Condemned to death by the Sultan of Brunei, Nelson O'Cain seeks to save himself with a tattoo of a dragon -- a rampant dragon with wings outstretched, the same dragon that was carved on a obelisk on a small island at the mouth of a river in Borneo. Not only was the pillar supposed to be a man who...

Money ships were wrecks of treasure-galleons belched up from the bottom of the sea after tremendous storms, yielding doubloons and all kinds of precious treasure ... gold bars and bullion, chests of brilliant gems... Oriental adventurer Captain Rochester spun an entrancing tale to Jerusha,...

Money ships were wrecks of treasure-galleons that were belched up from the bottom of the sea after tremendous storms, yielding doubloons and all other kinds of precious treasure ... gold bars and bullion, chests of brilliant gems. Though just a story Jerusha Gardiner heard in childhood, it led to...

On a shimmering morning on the Moluccan Sea young Jerusha is sent by her father, Captain Michael Gardiner, to pay a call on a mysterious brig that had arrived in the night. Not only is the dashing craft more piratical than Jess had expected but the man who hailed her as she clambered on board is as...

By making Nelson O'Cain his partner, Michael Gardiner has disinherited his daughter, Jerusha, who is in faroff Massachusetts, learning the skills of a herb-woman and midwife. So he devises the crazy idea of an arranged marriage with Nelson, to salve his conscience and set matters straight. Unconvinced,...

ABOUT THE PROMISE OF GOLD TRILOGY The Indians had tales of a lake of gold, and a race of women who lived there, who ate off gold, lived off gold, wore gold clothing, and a queen called Calafia who named her territory California… The Gosling, a brig of questionable ownership, has a...

The incredible true story of William "Bully' Hayes, the so-called "Pirate of the Pacific" in the 19th century; the myth and the man. The story of Bully Hayes - so-called "Pirate of the Pacific" - is known throughout the Pacific, from the US to Australia and all points in between. He became...