A girl aged ten in her parents' house on Jamaica, Resolute experiences calamity when pirates raid. In 1729 the small cane plantation had prospered and attracted picaroons, who sail in at night and raid, bringing off goods and slaves of all colours.

MY NAME IS RESOLUTE involves us from the first, as the young girl warns of the danger of jumping over a candle while wearing skirts; the further evils of smallpox and potential marriage to an older landowner are just a taster of the uncertainty of life at this time. As the pirates attack, the girl and her older sister Patience are hastily dressed in petticoats with jewels sewn into them by their mother. Captured along with some of their family, coloured slaves and Irish slaves, the girls can only weep.

Filth, starvation and degradation mean that this story is not for the tender, but with each change of circumstance we see that all the captives get equal treatment and Resolute barely understands what is happening, unlike Patience. English privateers, a plague ship full of rats and ocean storms pile turmoil on the sisters. Eventually, seeing snow and frost for the first time, Resolute who has always had servants is sold for five pounds, expected to earn her keep. Her journey takes her from one version of captivity to another and yet more, as far north as Montréal, for all tough, dirty and unpleasant jobs were done by human hands at this time.

Marvelling at young Resolute's survival instinct, her inner strength and sharpness, her misplaced determination to see her mother again, I just had to keep reading. One disaster overtakes the last and the story moves along at a fine pace. Contrasts with fine gowns and patched garb, a lady's life in Boston and an indentured servant's labours, politics and war, make for a rich, informing read. Resolute learns that a woman needs her own way of making a living. By the end of the haunting story we feel we have seen the places, handled the flax stalks and scented the marauding bear.

I am filled with admiration for the research, planning and writing which went into MY NAME IS RESOLUTE. I hope to read more tales by Nancy E. Turner which bring the past lives of people into our homes. This gripping sequence of adventures and survivals would have a worthy place on anyone's bookshelf.