Books by William Charles Furney

How had things gone so wrong? Caelyn's small hands, raw with broken blisters, were no longer able to grasp the oars. It mattered little that the wind was dying and the sky was almost clear. Without fresh water, they would not survive. Exhausted, she rested against the oar handles crossed in an X before her and sobbed, cursing the strange aversion that kept her from doing the one simple thing that might save them. But only for a few moments. She may not be stronger than her phobia, but neither was she weak of constitution and determination. The tears shed were seen by no one and the release of pent-up emotion gave new hope. Settling in next to the unconscious rescuer to share body warmth against the growing cold, Caelyn prayed to the only gods that had ever afforded her comfort. Aphrodite's Whisper is an epic story that begins in the winter of 1903 with the grounding of a private yacht during a brutal nor'easter on North Carolina's dreaded Diamond Shoals. Caelyn Canady, a moneyed-class misfit from New York, becomes a castaway forced to save herself and the man who should have rescued her. During her journey home, she finds love on the desolate dunes of the Outer Banks, witnesses man's first flight, and becomes the woman she knows she is meant to be. Ethan Roberts, her would-be rescuer, is a veteran of the Spanish-American War tormented by the deaths of his best friend and an innocent woman. In becoming a surfman, he has found refuge in the untamed isolation of Cape Hatteras where the next call for help may be the one that finally frees him from his guilt and pain. Whether it be through redemption or death he no longer cares - until the stoic Missourian's passion for life is rekindled by the slight woman who saves him. Reminiscent of sweeping historical fiction such as Legends of the Fall and Cold Mountain, Aphrodite's Whisper transports the reader to a seldom-explored time and place. Though painstakingly researched, the book's historical detail serves only as the canvas on which the characters come alive. In short, Aphrodite's Whisper is a timeless tale of two people who share a love so strong it survives betrayal, war, and even death.

Peg Brennan hasn't held a sword since the day she was captured at sea and imprisoned ten years earlier. But as her fingers slide around the hilt of the rapier laying in the dirt beside her, she knows that the quiet life she has created for her bastard son in Bath is about to change for the worse - and still she cannot stop herself. What she doesn't know is that an even darker threat will soon arrive to drag her back into the blackness that can only exist in a pirate's heart. Sailing toward the port town in the Carolina colony is Mary Read - the woman Peg left behind to die in Jamaica nine years earlier. Her life has been as hard as Peg's has been mundane, providing bitter sauce for the cold revenge she intends to serve her former love. When they come face to face, Mary Read plans to kill Peg - the woman who is really Anne Bonny - as payment for her suffering. But fate seldom adheres to the plans of men, and even less so for women who have tasted forbidden fruit. More than a rousing adventure story in the vein of Treasure Island and Captain Blood, Black Hearts White Bones delivers a broadside to convention by daring to portray legendary pirates Anne Bonny and Mary Read as real women refusing to surrender to the mores of their time. Eschewing gratuitous bodice-ripping for a more serious look at these two anti-heroines, debut author William Charles Furney gives us a resounding answer to the question; If it is true that only those women who behave badly make history, can two women loving badly rewrite it? Though Black Hearts White Bones is a "what if" novel that abounds in history, intrigue, and mystery, the story is always about Anne Bonny and Mary Read. The tension between them is present throughout, and little is what it appears to be. In the quest to regain that which Mary Read has stolen from her, Anne discovers clues about the Lost Colony settlers, attempts to save the fortress city of Charles Town, and discovers her true self. As the woman who would resurrect a pirate nation, Mary Read soon realizes that some bonds are not meant to be broken, a circumstance that begins to drive Anne mad.