** spoiler alert ** 
 A Kid in King Arthur's Court meets On Stranger Tides in this fun, sword-flinging adventure. Teenage Jill, down after losing the big fencing match, finds herself back in the 18th century, on board the ship of history's forgotten pirate queen, Marjory Cooper. 
 The good: this story is BIG on the fun. It's a great, fast read that will keep you wanting to know what happens next. Also, I LOVED Marjory Cooper's character; she was so amazing and believable there will forever be a part of me that secretly wants to go on thinking she was real and is only not in the history books because she was never caught by the royal navy. Surely no one so amazing could have been made up by a mere AUTHOR; though perhaps it is unfair of me to say that since Carrie Vaughn deserves full credit for inventing the incredibly raw and wonderful Captain Cooper. In addition, I ADORED the scene in which several famous pirates from that time period are having a drink together in a tavern. That was so well written and FUN! And of course, the author gets bonus points for writing her fencing and sword-fighting scenes in both time periods so well I could picture the whole thing in my head! I know from experience how hard those scenes can be to write and they were so well done here it just blew me away. 
 The bad: Well, I'm not gonna lie, Jill was okay, but she didn't exactly SHINE for me as a character. I wouldn't say she was one dimensional, but maybe TWO dimensional certainly... She didn't pop and sparkle with the same realistic crackle as Marjory Copper and Henry did. She had no goals other than to work with her head down, find a way home, and eventually fight the bad guy. I just felt there could have been more to her. My main beef with the book though, and the reason it didn't make my favorites list was because its pace was just a little too breakneck. It never slows down long enough for you to register what's happening. You DO get a little break in that fun scene with the pirates having a drink together, and that two second romance between Henry and Jill that goes NOWHERE and is just there for the cuteness factor I guess, but that's about it. Even when the storyline was explaining the whole bulk of the plot, exactly what the evil Edmund Blane did to Marjory to make her hate him so much, it went by so quick that if your eyes were tired and you blinked and accidentally skipped a line, you'd miss it. 
 Also, it kind of seemed the author was in too much of a hurry to wrap everything up. There was a line from the beginning of the book I thought was going to be called back to; it never was. Shame because it would have tied the ending together amazingly. As it was, the ending seemed a little too convenient and callous. I was hoping also, that maybe Henry's descendant in modern day would make an appearance in the epilogue to at least give a REASON for the romance between Henry/Jill or at least be a cute way to tie it up. I mean, even if he had DIED it would have been more conclusive than just she goes back home and vaguely misses him but not that much because he's probably gonna die young anyway... That's pretty much all the book says on the matter... Shrugs. 
 A good read though. Worth at least reading once.