PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION:

Destiny's Hand: a pirate ship that cannot be sunk led by a dying Captain who will not give up. His final wish before he dies is to find the legendary Devil's Eye. And who does he appoint to lead his fearless crew in search of the lost treasure, but Olivia Soldana, a brash 16-year-old girl who can outdo any man.

(preview | official Destiny's Hand website)


AUTHORS' COMMENTS:

[Christina] Pirates. My husband loves pirates. Several years ago we were at Disneyland with our friend Alex. We had just gotten off the Pirates Of The Caribbean ride and Nunzio and Alex decided that they were going to talk like pirates for the rest of the day. But because they're the "creative" type, they soon experimented with what Pirate Lawyers, Pirate Waiters, Pirate Taxi Cab Drivers and Pirate Agents would sound like. You name it, they "pirate-tized" it. And the trend continued. Every so often, Nunzio would just break into Pirate Speak. So when the opportunity came up for us to do a pirate book with Seven Seas (and come on, their name is Seven Seas. They HAD to do a pirate book), I agreed on one condition. Nunz would have to put a moratorium on the pirate voice. It pains him. But he's so over the moon to be writing pirates that I think he thought it was a worthwhile trade. Now whenever we sit down to write Destiny's Hand he simply puts the Pirates Of The Caribbean soundtrack on repeat and lets it play endlessly. And as that's a really cool soundtrack I don't even mind. Much.

[Nunzio] Our work at Seven Seas has been so smooth. Jason DeAngelis, our publisher, is great about picking artists and giving input into designs, to give all the books a unified look. Yet at the same time, he steps back and lets us have the final say. This book had the one time we really butted heads. Olivia's design was a huge tug of war. We wanted a more traditional pirate girl design - tight pants or leggings, ruffly shirt, big hat. Mel had designed something closer to what you see - with a thong. We wanted Olivia to dress the part of pirate, and Mel and Jason wanted her to really be an eye-catching manga design. Boy did that get heated, and it almost meant that
Destiny's Hand wasn't going to be published at Seven Seas. But we wanted to work with Jason again, and we loved all of Mel's other's designs and definitely wanted him to do the book. So we ultimately shifted our perspective on Olivia. She would dress however she wanted, expectations for a pirate be damned. Viewing her that way made the design work for us. But ultimately, the thong had to go - it was replaced by the shorts you see now.