It’s almost forty years after the events of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island: Jim Hawkins now runs an inn called the Hispaniola on the English coast with his son, Jim, and Long John Silver has returned to England to live in obscurity with his daughter, Natty. Their lives are quiet and unremarkable; their adventures have seemingly ended.
But for Jim and Natty, the adventure is just beginning. One night, Natty approaches young Jim with a proposition: return to Treasure Island and find the remaining treasure that their fathers left behind so many years before. As Jim and Natty set sail in their fathers’ footsteps, they quickly learn that this journey will not be easy. Immediately, they come up against murderous pirates, long-held grudges, and greed and deception lurking in every corner. And when they arrive on Treasure Island, they find terrible scenes awaiting them—difficulties which require all their wit as well as their courage. Nor does the adventure end there, since they have to sail homeward again…
Andrew Motion’s sequel—rollicking, heartfelt, and utterly brilliant—would make Robert Louis Stevenson proud.
About Andrew Motion
Andrew Motion is a poet, critic, novelist, biographer, and a professor. He served as Poet Laureate of the UK for ten years and was knighted for his services to literature in 2009. He is now Professor of Creative Writing at Royal Holloway College, University of Londonand a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He lives in London.
Editorial Review
It’s 1802, and 35 years since the Hispaniola set sail for Treasure Island. Former cabin boy Jim Hawkins owns a Thames-side inn outside London; his only child, also called Jim, is a well-educated amateur botanist. This 17-year-old Jim is our new hero and narrator, but don’t expect Stevenson’s pell-mell pace; Motion’s rhythm is much more leisurely. A blanketed figure in a small boat beckons to Jim. This is Natty, the tomboy daughter of the treacherous Long John Silver, who has his own inn upriver. It’s love at first sight for Jim, despite his unexplained fear of women. Natty takes Jim to meet Silver, blind and feeble. The old reprobate’s dying wish is for the youngsters to retrieve the remaining silver from the island. A ship and crew await them. Silver needs Jim to get the map, which his father keeps locked away; Jim’s theft of the map weighs heavily on his conscience, but he’s not about to pass up an adventure with Natty, disguised as a man for the voyage. Their position on board is privileged; Natty is her father’s representative, and Jim’s history is well-known. The situation on the island is horrifying. Stevenson’s three maroons, or castaways, have been joined by passengers from a shipwreck: 50 slaves and their guards. The maroons have imposed a reign of terror, resulting in a Conrad-ian “impenetrable darkness.” Natty will be captured. There will be exciting reversals of fortune before her stouthearted Captain’s party confronts the former pirates, who are almost too freaky in their “disgustingness.” Good people die; Jim must spill blood. In these scenes, Motion matches the raw vitality of Stevenson, though his conclusion is far more grim. – Kirkus Reviews
Buccaneers and Bullion - ‘Silver: Return to Treasure Island,’ by Andrew Motion
The New York Times Book Review – August 23, 2012 (Excerpt)
Alas for the unintended cruelty of a book-reviewing aunt! On the long ride to catch the sunset from the dunes above Lake Michigan, I handed my restless 7-year-old nephew a book from my beach bag: Robert Louis Stevenson’s “Treasure Island.” Instantly and intently, he began reading aloud, propelled by the excitement of discovery. Later, back at the cottage, he asked, “Can I have my book now?” Guiltily, I told him he’d have to wait: I needed it for a story I was writing about “Treasure Island” and its new sequel, “Silver,” by the British poet Andrew Motion. I felt like a blackhearted mutineer.
But my nephew should count himself lucky. A boy who read “Treasure Island” when the book was first published in 1883 would have had to wait much longer than he did for a continuation of the adventures of the hapless but doughty innkeepers’ son, Jim Hawkins, and the wily one-legged pirate Long John Silver, who sailed on the Hispaniola seeking the doubloons of the notorious Captain Flint. The hoard they found was so vast they couldn’t haul it all back to England, so they took the gold and left the silver behind. Just as a gun that appears in Act I of a play must be fired before the curtain closes, a second treasure trove demands a second expedition. But Stevenson never launched one. He died in 1894, at the age of 44, a year after the publication of “Catriona,” the sequel to his second most famous novel, “Kidnapped.” [Read the full article...]
UnBound: Battle of the Half-Angels
The Nephillim Chronicles – Book One by Ronnie Massey
Justin and Theo are just normal teenagers with their teenage problems, until the day they meet their biological fathers, Michael and Uriel, two of the few remaining archangels. They learn, they are nephillim, the half human offspring of angels, and they learn they are not the only ones. In the days of old, nephillim walked the earth. Now heaven’s misfits may be all that stands between mankind and the wrath of Lucifer and the Fallen. But how will a handful of teenagers react when they find out, not only are they not human, but they are the most powerful soldiers in heaven’s army? How will they deal with their newly found powers? And will they be able to stop Lucifer?
We are the only country that makes guns, including military-style assault weapons, available to anyone who wants to buy them. This is not freedom. It is a tyranny of death and destruction — a tyranny of which the National Rifle Association is proud. The Washington Post
UnBound: Battle of the Half-Angels
