Cinnamon and Gunpowder: A Novel [Paperback]

The year is 1819, and the renowned chef Owen Wedgwood has been kidnapped by a beautiful yet ruthless pirate. He will be spared, Mad Hannah Mabbot tells him, as long as he can conjure an exquisite meal every Sunday from the ship's meager supplies. While Wedgwood attempts to satisfy his captor with feats such as tea-smoked eel and pineapple-banana cider, he realizes that Mabbot herself is under siege. Hunted by a deadly privateer and plagued by a saboteur, she pushes her crew past exhaustion in her search for the notorious Brass Fox. But there is a method to Mabbot's madness, and as theFlying Roseraces across the ocean, Wedgwood learns to rely on the bizarre crew members he once feared: a formidable giant who loves to knit; a pair of stoic martial arts masters, sworn to defend their captain; and the ship's deaf cabin boy, who becomes the son he never had.

An anarchic tale of love and appetite, Eli Brown'sCinnamon and Gunpowderis a wildly original feat of the imagination, deep and startling as the sea itself.

You'll savor every bite. Petra Mayer, NPR

A great beach read that doesn't sacrifice beautiful writing...Oh, Hannah! What a character she is--sexy, hilarious, tough, and with such heart. Julie Powell, author of Julie and Julia

Original and exquisite...Salty, smart, and sensuous. Eli Brown unfurls a pirate story that's also an eloquent disquisition on human appetite and the mysteries of taste. Carolyn Cooke, author of Daughters of the Revolution

A swashbuckler of a cookbook, and a romance, too. BonApp?tit.com

Accomplished and enormously powerful. The Philadelphia Inquirer on The Great Days

With lyrical, confident prose, Brown malS.