Portsmouth, England,1760. Patricia Kelley, the illegitimate daughter of a wealthy Barbadian sugarcane planter, falls from her imagined place in the world when her absent father unexpectedly dies. Raised in a Wiltshire boarding school sixteen-year-old Patricia embarks on a desperate crossing on a merchantman bound for Barbados, where she was born, in a brash attempt to claim an unlikely inheritance. Aboard a merchantman under contract with the British Navy to deliver gunpowder to the West Indian forts, young Patricia finds herself pulled between two worlds -- and two identities -- as she charts her own course for survival in the war-torn 18th century.

Born in Maryland, Linda Collison grew up on a small family farm and later, moved to Cheyenne, Wyoming, where she earned an associate degree in nursing from Laramie County Community College in 1982. She attended Metropolitan State College in Denver, Colorado, while working as a registered nurse for 12 years, specializing in Emergency Nursing.

Collison’s composite career has allowed her to follow her various interests. Besides a registered nurse and a mother of three, she has also been a professional skydiving instructor, a volunteer firefighter, and a first aid/CPR instructor. She enjoys many outdoor sports and activities, especially sailing. Her interest in the past has led her to continue her studies in history at Metropolitan State College.

Collison’s love for creative writing inspired her to become a freelance writer while raising children and working for a living. She has published guidebooks, essays, short stories, articles and poetry in an assortment of publications and has received awards from Johnson & Johnson and the National Student Nurses Association, Honolulu Magazine, and Southwest Writers Workshop. In 1996 she was awarded grand prize from the Maui Writers Conference. Collison is the author of the Patricia MacPhearson Nautical Adventure series including Barbados Bound (forthcoming from Fireship Press), Surgeon's Mate, and a third novel in the series forthcoming this fall.