A Daring Tale of a Singular Girl Pirate's Adventure Upon the High Seas - a gaudy romp through exotic places, bizarre secrets, secret enemies and total gender-stereotype reversals.

17-year-old Artemis Blastside (Art) fumes in the dreary Angels Academy for Young Ladies. Shoved there by her aristocratic father, she longs for the life her mother led - as a notorious female pirate of the High Seas who earned the feared nickname: Piratica. She plots escape from the irksome school and hopes to reclaim her mother's ship 'The Unwelcome Stranger'.

She finally seizes the chance one day in the company of her classmate Belladora Fan. They make for Portsmouth and arrive at the unruly inn, 'The Portsmouth Pudding', where Art finds some of her mother's crew. As she is trying to convince them of who she is, the dangerously insane highwayman Cuckoo Jack arrives and sends the crew, with Art and Belladora, flying for the ship and open water. Suddenly a stowaway emerges from a rum barrel: handsome, artistic Felix Phoenix, alas hopelessy sea-sick. And this is just the beginning of the adventure. As the ship sets course for the Blue Indies and the Caribbean Ambers, Art produces her ace card: a burnt fragment of a map, showing the location of treasure Beyond the Dreams of Avarice. While the crew careers through sea-fights, European cities, markets of the Orient and tempestuous seas to a tropical island, Art tries to win her mother's crown, Belladora works out what she truly wants, and the gorgeous Felix tries to combat his sea-sickness ...