White Slaves: 15 Years a Barbary Slave (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9781738991112)

June 1631 - Baltimore, Ireland

"Malcolm woke up just before dawn broke over the cove. He heard a loud crash and climbed out of bed. He sniffed the air and smelled smoke. He was barely six years old, but he knew something bad was happening. He heard a knock at the door and went to open it. Standing on the threshold was a fierce-looking Turkish janissary wearing a long red tunic and a traditional bork with a jewelled ornament affixed to the forehead, brandishing a curved yatagan sabre. The huge man smiled at the awestruck boy, who remained frozen in place, too scared to move."

From the bestselling author of Playing Rudolf Hess, An Absolute Secret, Shipwrecked Lives, and Remembrance Man comes this spellbinding historical novel about the raid of the famous Dutch corsair and pirate Murad Reis on the peaceful fishing village of Baltimore, Ireland. His men seized 109 men, women, and children and subjected them to a 38-day voyage down the coast of France and Spain to a life of slavery in Algiers. This is the story of their adventures during that horrific voyage and their lives as slaves in Algiers before they were ransomed by the English Parliament fifteen years later.

"KIDNAPPED BY PIRATES, SOLD INTO SLAVERY, THEY STRUGGLE TO SURVIVE"

The largely forgotten white slave trade saw over a million European Christians forced into captivity in the Barbary States of North Africa between 1530 and 1780. Whole villages and towns in England, Ireland, France, Italy, Spain and even Iceland were depopulated by corsair slavers who captured men, women and children and brought them to North Africa where they were sold to the highest bidder. It is hard to believe but today there are over 100 million descendants of white slaves living in Europe, North America and the Middle East. Their ancestors were among the 35,000 white slaves living in Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli in the 17th century.