What do you think?
Rate this book
The Tortuga Plantation
With the Spanish Empire brutally driving the buccaneers from their hunting grounds, the half-wild men must look for a new refuge in the West Indies. They find it just a few miles off the northwest coast of the island of Tortuga.
Rugged, sparsely settled, but poised on the edge of Spain’s trade routes, Tortuga is an ideal base for the outcast hunters. Among them is the hulking, enigmatic Jean-Baptiste LeBoeuf, now a reluctant leader of the buccaneers. But LeBoeuf’s interest in Tortuga involves more than simply escaping the Spanish Empire. Ownership of a plantation on the island has fallen into his hands, and it is his dream, his vision, to lay claim to that property and put an end to his savage and nomadic life.
But once again Spain stands in his way, as a powerful fleet sent from Seville comes to route the buccaneers from their latest foothold. Among the expedition’s leaders is Don Alonso Menéndez, lieutenant governor of the West Indies, who has designs of his own for the island and the land LeBoeuf intends to claim. Now the two men will battle for the beautiful Henriette and the hundred acres of paradise that is the Tortuga plantation.
Rugged, sparsely settled, but poised on the edge of Spain’s trade routes, Tortuga is an ideal base for the outcast hunters. Among them is the hulking, enigmatic Jean-Baptiste LeBoeuf, now a reluctant leader of the buccaneers. But LeBoeuf’s interest in Tortuga involves more than simply escaping the Spanish Empire. Ownership of a plantation on the island has fallen into his hands, and it is his dream, his vision, to lay claim to that property and put an end to his savage and nomadic life.
But once again Spain stands in his way, as a powerful fleet sent from Seville comes to route the buccaneers from their latest foothold. Among the expedition’s leaders is Don Alonso Menéndez, lieutenant governor of the West Indies, who has designs of his own for the island and the land LeBoeuf intends to claim. Now the two men will battle for the beautiful Henriette and the hundred acres of paradise that is the Tortuga plantation.
- GenresHistorical Fiction
437 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 13, 2024
245 people are currently reading
67 people want to read
About the author
James L. Nelson
62 books363 followersJames L. Nelson (1962-) is an American historical nautical novelist. He was born in Lewiston, Maine. In 1980, Nelson graduated from Lewiston High School. Nelson attended the University of Massachusetts, Amherst for two years, and then transferred to UCLA, with the ambition of becoming a film director. Nelson, his wife, Lisa, and their daughter Betsy lived for two years in Steubenville, Ohio, while Lisa attended Franciscan University. They also have two boys, Nate and Jack. They now live in Harpswell, Maine, where Nelson continues to write full time.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
October 23, 2024
Excellent read. Mr. Nelson has written a very enjoyable book that is well worth reading. I look forward to the next installment in this series.
February 1, 2026
The Buccaneer Coast — maybe 3.5 or 3.75, not quite a 4. It was a bit too long for a what is essentially an adventure book. 300 pages is the number for these types of stories. Not 430. Anyway...
Nelson sets The Buccaneer Coast in the mid-17th-century Caribbean, a period of imperial slippage when Spain still claimed everything on paper, buccaneers lived between flags & permanence had not yet hardened into plantation empire. It’s a period I love — chaotic, transitional & morally unsettled (much like today I guess) — and Nelson clearly knows it well. I dig his knowledge of the history...but, fairly, I wish it was bit more intellectual than it sometimes is.
At the book’s historical core is the Spanish reassertion against Tortuga, clearly modeled on the 1654 Spanish invasion launched from Santo Domingo. This event functions as the novel’s central pressure point: not merely an action set-piece, but the force that drives every faction to reposition. Spain’s response succeeds tactically and fails strategically — a historically accurate pattern that mirrors the broader decline of Spanish power in the West Indies.
The novel weaves three principal threads, sometimes elegantly, sometimes at the cost of focus:
Henri LeBœuf — the clear hero of the book — represents the emergent, adaptive authority of the buccaneer world. He is competent, restrained & increasingly inevitable. While his arc is compelling, he is off the page too often, especially given that he is the character readers most want to follow. When he does appear, the book sharpens immediately. Said differently, he needed to be the focus much more than he was.
Spanish Santo Domingo, centered on Las Casas Reales, is depicted as the formal seat of Spanish power on Hispaniola. Nelson does an excellent job showing layered colonial authority — Governor General, Lieutenant Governor - Alonso...a major character that I just didn't really care for. The Corrupt Mayor right out of Central Casting, and municipal muscle that are nothing more than disposable bad guys — and how bureaucracy, delay, and divided responsibility blunt imperial response. I wouldn't be surprised if Nelson is pecking away on a screen treatment as we "speak."
Tortuga, with its buccaneers, predators, and opportunists, represents mobility, violence, and impermanence. Characters like Benjamin Graves and the dangerous Tiano Maja embody forces that cannot survive institutionalization. Their plot intersects with LeBœuf’s world and the looming Spanish intervention, though this thread occasionally feels detached until late in the book. Maja is a great villain...but again, we have the corrupt Mayor and a Dutch dude, who are also both villains.
Nelson’s grasp of Caribbean geopolitics is a strength. Santo Domingo stands as Spain’s symbolic capital — old, formal, anxious — while Tortuga exists as its negation: deniable, violent, and adaptable. The novel captures the reality that empires in this era governed more by reputation than reach, while men on the margins learned to wait authority out.
Like I said, the book is too damn long and too cluttered. There are simply too many characters and parallel threads, not all of which earn their page time. The narrative lacks focus in the middle, and the reader is asked to do more administrative tracking than the story ultimately rewards. The plantation element, while important thematically for the sequel, functions here largely as a MacGuffin — more signpost than substance. C'mon - the Tortuga Plantation gets about 5 pages of love.
Gotta mention the standout minor character Other Dog, LeBœuf’s massive, loyal mastiff. In a book full of shifting loyalties and calculated violence, Other Dog’s uncomplicated fidelity provides both grounding and texture. He is, quietly, one of the most memorable presences in the novel.
Despite its sprawl and structural clutter, The Buccaneer Coast remains mostly enjoyable, especially for readers like me who dig this transitional Age-of-Sail moment when piracy, privateering, and empire overlap messily. Nelson’s historical instincts are sound, his central event well chosen, and his hero worth following — even if the book sometimes wanders too far from him.
I’ll be interested to see where Nelson takes LeBœuf next - I suspect he becomes a full-blown Pirate, especially as the story moves from fluid buccaneering into the harder realities of land, labor, and permanence.
All in - good book with some minor beefs.
Nelson sets The Buccaneer Coast in the mid-17th-century Caribbean, a period of imperial slippage when Spain still claimed everything on paper, buccaneers lived between flags & permanence had not yet hardened into plantation empire. It’s a period I love — chaotic, transitional & morally unsettled (much like today I guess) — and Nelson clearly knows it well. I dig his knowledge of the history...but, fairly, I wish it was bit more intellectual than it sometimes is.
At the book’s historical core is the Spanish reassertion against Tortuga, clearly modeled on the 1654 Spanish invasion launched from Santo Domingo. This event functions as the novel’s central pressure point: not merely an action set-piece, but the force that drives every faction to reposition. Spain’s response succeeds tactically and fails strategically — a historically accurate pattern that mirrors the broader decline of Spanish power in the West Indies.
The novel weaves three principal threads, sometimes elegantly, sometimes at the cost of focus:
Henri LeBœuf — the clear hero of the book — represents the emergent, adaptive authority of the buccaneer world. He is competent, restrained & increasingly inevitable. While his arc is compelling, he is off the page too often, especially given that he is the character readers most want to follow. When he does appear, the book sharpens immediately. Said differently, he needed to be the focus much more than he was.
Spanish Santo Domingo, centered on Las Casas Reales, is depicted as the formal seat of Spanish power on Hispaniola. Nelson does an excellent job showing layered colonial authority — Governor General, Lieutenant Governor - Alonso...a major character that I just didn't really care for. The Corrupt Mayor right out of Central Casting, and municipal muscle that are nothing more than disposable bad guys — and how bureaucracy, delay, and divided responsibility blunt imperial response. I wouldn't be surprised if Nelson is pecking away on a screen treatment as we "speak."
Tortuga, with its buccaneers, predators, and opportunists, represents mobility, violence, and impermanence. Characters like Benjamin Graves and the dangerous Tiano Maja embody forces that cannot survive institutionalization. Their plot intersects with LeBœuf’s world and the looming Spanish intervention, though this thread occasionally feels detached until late in the book. Maja is a great villain...but again, we have the corrupt Mayor and a Dutch dude, who are also both villains.
Nelson’s grasp of Caribbean geopolitics is a strength. Santo Domingo stands as Spain’s symbolic capital — old, formal, anxious — while Tortuga exists as its negation: deniable, violent, and adaptable. The novel captures the reality that empires in this era governed more by reputation than reach, while men on the margins learned to wait authority out.
Like I said, the book is too damn long and too cluttered. There are simply too many characters and parallel threads, not all of which earn their page time. The narrative lacks focus in the middle, and the reader is asked to do more administrative tracking than the story ultimately rewards. The plantation element, while important thematically for the sequel, functions here largely as a MacGuffin — more signpost than substance. C'mon - the Tortuga Plantation gets about 5 pages of love.
Gotta mention the standout minor character Other Dog, LeBœuf’s massive, loyal mastiff. In a book full of shifting loyalties and calculated violence, Other Dog’s uncomplicated fidelity provides both grounding and texture. He is, quietly, one of the most memorable presences in the novel.
Despite its sprawl and structural clutter, The Buccaneer Coast remains mostly enjoyable, especially for readers like me who dig this transitional Age-of-Sail moment when piracy, privateering, and empire overlap messily. Nelson’s historical instincts are sound, his central event well chosen, and his hero worth following — even if the book sometimes wanders too far from him.
I’ll be interested to see where Nelson takes LeBœuf next - I suspect he becomes a full-blown Pirate, especially as the story moves from fluid buccaneering into the harder realities of land, labor, and permanence.
All in - good book with some minor beefs.
April 20, 2025
With their camp decimated by a hurricane, Jean-Baptiste LeBoeuf leads his fellow boucaniers to the neighboring island of Tortuga. He neither wants nor asks them to follow him, but his occasional spoken words lead others to agree with him. Since he cannot recover the sunken treasure, he is driven to immigrate because of a letter of patent discovered before the shipwreck sinks. He plans to assume the identity of the owner and take possession of the plantation. Beyond that, his plans are unknown.
Henriette de Labonté accompanies him because she’s safer with him than without, but she has no ties to this silent, impulsive, and giant Frenchman. She has a single goal – to return to France – and the sunken treasure will allow her to do this. It is why she keeps her silence . . . for now.
One other man knows of the gold: Hendrick Van Lauwersoog. A former naval officer, this Dutchman is wily and not one to be trusted. Still, he’s promised to remain silent about the treasure . . . for now.
Don Alonso Menéndez de Aviles has dreams and plans for his new life as lieutenant governor, the second highest ranking official in Santo Domingo. He craves wealth and power but is a novice when it comes to Spain’s New World empire, and those who have come before already have their footholds well established. It doesn’t take long for him to realize who his true enemies are, and a riot and the presence of Fadrique Álvarez de Toledo, Captain General of King Philip IV’s Ocean Sea Navy, permit him to lay the groundwork to upend his nemesis, the city’s mayor. This scheming also allows him to set in motion a business strategy that involves the lawless island of Tortuga.
The reader soon learns that nothing and no one are as they seem in this second installment of the Blood, Steel & Empire series. Each has secrets, some of which Nelson slowly reveals at key points in the story at just the right time. In doing so, his characters realize that their pasts are never as buried as they think and what happened then influences what unfolds now.
During the 17th century, the boucaniers of Hispaniola are driven from the island where they hunt wild pigs. Some migrate to Tortuga, but the Spanish are keen on keeping out foreigners from their lands. This eventually pushes these boucaniers into piracy and over time, their name becomes anglicized to buccaneers. Nelson weaves a compelling historical novel that demonstrates how and why this shift occurs. His portrayal is historically accurate and the facts are intricately woven into the story in ways that keep the reader from noticing them. He includes maps of Hispaniola and Tortuga, a ship diagram, and a glossary for readers as well.
Intrigue, betrayal, greed, corruption, murder, and battles both on land and at sea abound. Although fiction, The Tortuga Plantation is steeped in reality; readers who are squeamish about blood and guts may want to pass on this story that vividly recreates the Spanish Caribbean of the early 1600s. This is also a tale of power struggles where circumstances make for strange bedfellows; one day a man may be an ally, the next an enemy. Readers soon realize why LeBoeuf prefers to live one day at a time and fully trusts only his mastiff, Other Dog.
This review originally appeared at Pirates and Privateers (http://www.cindyvallar.com/JLNelson.h...)
Henriette de Labonté accompanies him because she’s safer with him than without, but she has no ties to this silent, impulsive, and giant Frenchman. She has a single goal – to return to France – and the sunken treasure will allow her to do this. It is why she keeps her silence . . . for now.
One other man knows of the gold: Hendrick Van Lauwersoog. A former naval officer, this Dutchman is wily and not one to be trusted. Still, he’s promised to remain silent about the treasure . . . for now.
Don Alonso Menéndez de Aviles has dreams and plans for his new life as lieutenant governor, the second highest ranking official in Santo Domingo. He craves wealth and power but is a novice when it comes to Spain’s New World empire, and those who have come before already have their footholds well established. It doesn’t take long for him to realize who his true enemies are, and a riot and the presence of Fadrique Álvarez de Toledo, Captain General of King Philip IV’s Ocean Sea Navy, permit him to lay the groundwork to upend his nemesis, the city’s mayor. This scheming also allows him to set in motion a business strategy that involves the lawless island of Tortuga.
The reader soon learns that nothing and no one are as they seem in this second installment of the Blood, Steel & Empire series. Each has secrets, some of which Nelson slowly reveals at key points in the story at just the right time. In doing so, his characters realize that their pasts are never as buried as they think and what happened then influences what unfolds now.
During the 17th century, the boucaniers of Hispaniola are driven from the island where they hunt wild pigs. Some migrate to Tortuga, but the Spanish are keen on keeping out foreigners from their lands. This eventually pushes these boucaniers into piracy and over time, their name becomes anglicized to buccaneers. Nelson weaves a compelling historical novel that demonstrates how and why this shift occurs. His portrayal is historically accurate and the facts are intricately woven into the story in ways that keep the reader from noticing them. He includes maps of Hispaniola and Tortuga, a ship diagram, and a glossary for readers as well.
Intrigue, betrayal, greed, corruption, murder, and battles both on land and at sea abound. Although fiction, The Tortuga Plantation is steeped in reality; readers who are squeamish about blood and guts may want to pass on this story that vividly recreates the Spanish Caribbean of the early 1600s. This is also a tale of power struggles where circumstances make for strange bedfellows; one day a man may be an ally, the next an enemy. Readers soon realize why LeBoeuf prefers to live one day at a time and fully trusts only his mastiff, Other Dog.
This review originally appeared at Pirates and Privateers (http://www.cindyvallar.com/JLNelson.h...)
January 15, 2025
A touch more sinister than its predecessor, James Nelson continues to get that pirates weren't heroic figures and even his protagonists here are self-serving and dishonest. It's all still completely captivating as we can't help but be invested in the well drawn lines of who we root for and who we don't, where the bad guys are so much worse than the others.
One note is there is a lot less sea-based writing here, compared to some of Nelson's other books. If that's your primary draw to his writing, you may be slightly let down, but, for me, the action is rich and compelling, even if its mostly on dry land.
One note is there is a lot less sea-based writing here, compared to some of Nelson's other books. If that's your primary draw to his writing, you may be slightly let down, but, for me, the action is rich and compelling, even if its mostly on dry land.
May 15, 2025
I could not get invested
The first book I read reluctantly but within the first pages I couldn’t stop reading and I liked the book. But this book was so tiring to me and I couldn’t make myself read past chapter 5. It couldn’t hold my interest and put me to sleep each time I tired to read it. I’m sure it is just me as James L Nelson is a fabulous author and so many books are page turners.
The first book I read reluctantly but within the first pages I couldn’t stop reading and I liked the book. But this book was so tiring to me and I couldn’t make myself read past chapter 5. It couldn’t hold my interest and put me to sleep each time I tired to read it. I’m sure it is just me as James L Nelson is a fabulous author and so many books are page turners.
October 22, 2024
Second in the series, this is a good continuation of the story. Life was complicated for Pirates in the early years of European colonization and the Spanish were everywhere and expanding.
The back story for the principal characters makes this more readable.
Waiting for the third installment with anticipation.
The back story for the principal characters makes this more readable.
Waiting for the third installment with anticipation.
August 3, 2025
Rather bad when compared with the previous in the series. I realized that when I can anticipate quite well what is going to happen and this is happening because the author thinks it is exciting for the common and romantic reader and that maybe the book can be easily transposed into some movie - than the book is losing almost all it charm for me.
August 5, 2025
There's a better sense of rythm here than in the previous novel, but I think that it all feels a bit overstretched. This trilogy could have been told in just one book. Still, It's probably one of the most original novels in the historical fiction genre focused on pirates.
Can't wait for the final (?) novel to be published.
Can't wait for the final (?) novel to be published.
January 13, 2026
This was a very exciting book about the Buccaneers of Tortuga and the various enemies that plague them. There is love, treachery, Gold, treasure, Nasty Spaniards, and more. I only wish the the author had continued his series. There are a lot of loose ends the be revealed.
October 29, 2024
Wonderful second book
I cannot believe I read it all in two days!!! Wonderful story and background of a multitude of characters. Hoping book three comes out quickly.
I cannot believe I read it all in two days!!! Wonderful story and background of a multitude of characters. Hoping book three comes out quickly.
February 18, 2025
A good read
I love the realistic feel of the time period. There's a lot going on in these two books. I can picture the characters. This would make a good movie/series.
I love the realistic feel of the time period. There's a lot going on in these two books. I can picture the characters. This would make a good movie/series.
July 15, 2025
Great Read
Love the way James Nelson describes the tales of LaBeouf. Can’t wait for the next adventure. Hope the next chapter comes soon
Love the way James Nelson describes the tales of LaBeouf. Can’t wait for the next adventure. Hope the next chapter comes soon
August 10, 2025
Great set of characters and an overall thrilling adventure that I need more of.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews