Hey everyone!
Today is my stop on the blog tour for Jiddy Vardy by Ruth Estevez. I am excited to be sharing an excerpt post with you all, so you can get a little taste for the book!
A massive thank you to @The_WriteReads and @ZunTold for allowing me to be a part of the tour.
Book Blurb:
1779
On tumultuous waters a girl is born as pirates board the ship…
Jiddy Vardy is a survivor.
Rescued at birth, she grows up in Robin Hood’s Bay, a community which harbours a dangerous secret that could get you killed.
Always the outsider, with her dark skirt and hair, at sixteen Jiddy is clever, brave and headstrong, soon risking her life and freedom to play her part in the Bay’s clandestine activities.
Then, just as romance blossoms and Jiddy finally feels like she belongs, figures from the past threaten to tear her world apart, and she has to decide where her loyalties truly lie.
A thrilling tale of one girl’s search for identity and love, set against a backdrop of wild seas, smuggling and violence.
Excerpt:
CHAPTER ONE
The North Sea
1779
Maria’s dress and underclothes lay in a crumpled pile and she wished someone would take them out of her sight. Gregory looked cross, like a little boy who’d been scolded. His copper brown curls fell over his eyes and his faintly coloured cheeks rounded into the hollow of his wide, voluptuous mouth.
If only the baby had waited until they’d reached land and then a midwife would have taken care of everything. A midwife would have bathed her and the baby and set them right and clean again for when the father re-entered the room, and he’d have been able to lean over and kiss her forehead and the baby’s and she might even have wanted to kiss his full, smiling lips, instead of hoping beyond hope that he hadn’t been put off by the struggle and mess of it all.
She never wanted to go through anything like it again. The cabin so cramped, Gregory and his friend, Ryethorpe, half kneeling, part lying on the bed then standing. Sheets knotted, her dress, too tight, half on, half off, knees up, legs down, twisting until rigid, then twisting again. Her hair, freed from its tight coils, frizzed dark over her clammy skin. Her teeth, cheek bones, jaw, forehead, all seemed too close to the surface.
‘It’s all right,’ Ryethorpe had said. ‘We’re here to help.’
‘She could have waited until we docked.’ Gregory sounded agitated, hands all fingers and yanking jerks.
‘She can hear you,’ Ryethorpe said.
‘Through these shouts? Did Catherine make this much noise? Tell me your son was worth all this.’
‘I can hear both of you,’ Maria said.
‘What do we do?’
‘I’m sixteen. Do I look like I’ve had a baby before?’
‘Ryethorpe? What do we do?’
When she screamed, they jumped back like startled cats.
She wished she could sink through the belly of the ship as if it were wool, slide through the hull and plunge into the dark, buoyed by water that would let her drift painlessly into depths where octopus and strange fish would stare at her and the baby, that would slip out of her like butter and she wouldn’t have had to move a muscle or pant out a breath.
Maria’s dark eyes glittered like polished jet. ‘The baby is coming,’ she said.
Ryethorpe’s high cheekbones seemed to protrude further, his large eyes wider in their deep sockets.
‘Go away!’ she shouted, gripping the bedsheet.
The men looked at each other then back at Maria, neither moving forward nor away.
About The Author:
Ruth Estevez was born in Yorkshire. Often the much loved landscape is a third character in her novels. A career in theatre, TV and a subscription library have influenced her work.
Script writing for Bob the Builder morphed into novel writing. Very much a Northern writer with Latin touches. Interested in social differences, the outsider and finding our place in the world.
YOU CAN FIND RUTH HERE:
Website, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, GoodReads
Book 3 in the series ‘Jiddy Vardy Full Sail’ is available now!
Book Blurb:
1796
When the sea can’t be put on trial for murder, who must pay the price?
A smuggler with a conscience, the defiant and contradictory Jiddy Vardy sets out to find choices and freedom for local girls worn thin by poverty.
Caught in the net that is Robin Hood’s Bay, Jiddy looks to majestic York, little realising that even loved ones can cage you when they think they are offering the chance of a lifetime.
Head inland to the promise of work, out to sea to the unknown, or stay in a close-knit community of smugglers and familiar faces?
What’s it to be for our endlessly curious, yet ultimately open-hearted Jiddy Vardy?
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_ForBooksSake 
I enjoyed the excerpt. Thank you for sharing.
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Glad you enjoyed it! 🙂
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