December 2, 2025 • 13 mins
A meditation on women’s leadership through the lens of Fire Sword and Sea, this episode explores the moral gray spaces women navigate across centuries—caregiving, ambition, survival, and the cost of doing right in a world that often demands compromise. From a pirate captain rising through the 1600s’ brutal hierarchies to modern women reshaping boardrooms and homes, this essay examines courage, complicity, and the fire required to rebuild. A conversation about leadership, womanhood, history, and the choices that define us—rooted in the dedication: For the women who do right. For the women who do wrong for the right reasons. For the women who burn it all down. For the dreamers left behind—keep sailing.
Keywords:
women’s leadership, historical fiction, Fire Sword and Sea, Jacquotte Delahaye, moral complexity, pirates, caregiving expectations, motherhood and leadership, ambition, complicity, Caribbean history, survival, freedom, ethical choices, feminist storytelling, colonialism, courage, duty vs ambition, rebuilding after loss, storytelling craft, women in leadership, leadership
Episode Notes & Extras
Find my full show notes, behind-the-scenes thoughts, and extras on Substack → vanessariley.substack.com
Join the conversation
Drop your thoughts in the comments — I love hearing from you!
Support & Stay Connected
Keywords:
women’s leadership, historical fiction, Fire Sword and Sea, Jacquotte Delahaye, moral complexity, pirates, caregiving expectations, motherhood and leadership, ambition, complicity, Caribbean history, survival, freedom, ethical choices, feminist storytelling, colonialism, courage, duty vs ambition, rebuilding after loss, storytelling craft, women in leadership, leadership
Episode Notes & Extras
Find my full show notes, behind-the-scenes thoughts, and extras on Substack → vanessariley.substack.com
Join the conversation
Drop your thoughts in the comments — I love hearing from you!
Support & Stay Connected
- Like 👍 if this episode resonated with you
- Share ↗️ with a friend who’d enjoy it
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Welcome to the Rite of Passage with Vanessa Riley, the
podcast where storytelling meets passion in every page turns into
a new adventure. I'm your host, Vanessa Riley, and together
we'll dive deep into untold histories, reflect on current events
through a historical lands, share behind the scenes writing insights,
(00:29):
and explore the ups and downs of the author's journey
from rich historical novels to unforgettable characters to pop culture's
intrusion on the written word. Hey, we're going to explore
it all. So grab your pen, your notebook, and let's
begin our journey through the written word. Let's start your
(00:54):
Rite of passage. Lead like a pirate for the women
who do right, for the women who do wrong, for
the right reasons, for the women who burn it all down.
Find beauty in ashes, for the dreamers left behind, keep sailing.
(01:17):
That is the dedication of fire, sword and sea. For
lines that came to me as a battle cry. It's
a reminder that womanhood, especially when tied to leadership, has
never been a straight line. It bends, curves, breaks and rebuilds.
It demands courage, it requires clarity, and some time, it
(01:42):
lusts for fire recently, a friend, some one who does
not read much historical fiction, got an early look at
Fire Sword and see she's a reader of self help,
of business strategy, of the occasional thriller. You can sneak
into her hands. But she said something that stopped me cold. Vanessa,
(02:04):
you wrote a book about leadership, about women's leadership. At first,
I blinked, that wasn't the answer I was expecting. Yes,
my heroine, Jacquot de la Haye, is a pirate captain,
and yes, pirate captains are leaders by definition. But what
(02:24):
my friend saw was something deeper, something I wasn't consciously
aiming for, but had apparently woven into every scene, every
strike of a sword on a pirate ship. In the
sixteen hundreds, leadership wasn't inherited, it was earned. Pirate vessels
operated like meritocracies. Any race, any nationality could join as
(02:49):
long as they could pull their weight. Jaquat rises the
only way a woman in that era could, in disguise,
hidden behind the line. She relies on her skill with
a rapier, her mastery of the sea, her stamina and grit,
and her ability to steer a stolen ship through storms.
(03:11):
Both literal and moral pirates didn't buy their ships, they
took them, and Jaquat climbs the ladder of command, one
impossible task at a time. Through fire, sword and sea.
We see her rise, her missteps, her victories, her bruises,
(03:34):
physical and spiritual. And that, my friend said is leadership.
But leadership, especially women's leadership, is a complicated beast. You
often talk about women who lead in boardrooms, in startups,
in medicine, in politics, but historically and even now, women
(03:57):
occupy the caregiver role by de According to report released
in March by US Healthcare Workforce, eighty seven percent of
nurses are women. The Bureau of Labor Statistics says eighty
percent of health care workers are women. We are the
(04:19):
hospice nurses, the physician assistant, the physical therapists, the ones
tending to the young, the old, the fading, the forgotten.
And in the sixteen hundreds this was even more pronounced.
Before physicians, there were women who gathered herbs, mixed tinctures,
(04:41):
whispered prayers, held hands, and ushered people into life and
into death and sometimes back again to lead. Sometimes that
caregiving must be set aside, and that choice weighs heavy
on the nurturers. Then there is modernity. How does being
(05:05):
a mother affect leadership? How does being a wife? How
does being the one expected to build a home nurture
the family, care for the elders and the in law.
I remember climbing the corporate ladder and watching women. I admired,
women who mentored me delay motherhood until the last biological
(05:27):
viable second. One of my favorite bosses of Brilliant Irish
PhD in physics once had suits tailored specifically to hide
her pregnancy. Because of that time, maternity leave and career
advancement could not coexist in the same equation. This is
(05:49):
the landscape women navigate, a landscape Jaquat would have known
in a different form in a different century, but it
still hauntedly familiar. My friend, though, wanted to talk about
a dedication for the women who do right, for the
(06:09):
women who do wrong for the right reasons, because in
leadership there's always a moment, a crossroad when doing the
right thing may mean being complicit in something that isn't right.
Sometimes survival demands choices who would never make in a
(06:30):
perfect world. We see the consequences of huberous and hard
choices in our real world today. Not to get too political,
but right now there's a crisis in the Caribbean that
breaks my heart. US forces have fired on fishing vessels,
claiming they carry drugs, but no proof has been given.
(06:52):
Witness accounts suggest at least one boat was attacked without cause,
leaving two people clinging for life. It seems a second
strike was ordered to kill defenseless victims. If drugs were aboard,
they now sit at the bottom of the sea, destroyed
(07:13):
by the same guns that struck the fishermen. This needless
killing violates the Geneva Convention, the rules of war, and
basic humanity, and now investigations must happen to see how
leadership failed and who was complicit in illegal orders. It
is a horrible situation when the people in all levels
(07:37):
of the chain of command failed. It's horrid that those
below followed orders that were illegal. Leadership, good or bad,
always has accomplices, and that is part of the burden
and fire Sword and Sea took quiet and her crew
(07:59):
face their own moral storms. In the sixteen hundred, the
currency of the sea was not just gold or silver,
it was people, African people. A horrid truth I confronted
in my research was located in merchant records. I saw
(08:20):
seventeen guinea for a pewter bowl. At first I thought
they meant the coin minted for King Charles the second
with gold from the country Guinea, but that coin wasn't
popular in the Caribbean. The Spanish silver pieces of eight were.
It was upon further digging through these records that I
(08:43):
realized they were referring to people. Everyone from Africa are
commonly called Guinea in the sixteen hundreds, so a pewter
vessel was valued at seventeen guinea. Seen human life, imagine
a world where a pewter bull was worth more than
(09:05):
a child. So yes, fire Sortency has action and saga
and mystery. But beneath the adventure it wrestles with leadership, complicity, survival,
and the cost of chasing freedom in a world built
on stolen bodies. This book asks questions, what does it
(09:28):
take to lead, What is the price of doing the
right thing? What happens when you must choose between your
principles and your people? And how do women across eras
navigate these impossible intersections of duty, ambition, and care. I
(09:50):
cannot wait to have deeper conversations with you, about these
choices and about leadership. A return to fire, sword and seize.
Dedication for the women who do right, for the women
who do wrong, for the right reasons, for the women
(10:11):
who burn it all down, Find beauty and ashes for
the dreamers left behind. Keep sailing. Books to keep us
diving deeper into leadership are The Soul of a Woman
by Isabel Allende, a reflective non fiction exploration of feminism,
(10:36):
aging ambition, and the fight for autonomy across a lifetime.
Take Care of Them Like My Own by doctor Ala Stanford.
It's a powerful memoir of a black woman surgeon who
turned grief, racism, and systematic neglect into a movement that
vaccinated and cared for thousands during COVID nineteen Sora Eila
(11:01):
is running for Congress to lead the third Congressional District
of Philadelphia. Check her out. The Broken Earth Trilogy by N. K.
Jimison a brilliant speculative saga about oppressed women who wield
world shaking power, exploring trauma, leadership, survival, and righteous destruction.
(11:26):
I'm Medusa by Ayana Gray a bold, haunting retelling that
gives Medusa her voice back, revealing the girl behind the
myth and exploring power, wrath, injustice, and the cost of
becoming the monster the world insists you are. Birth of
(11:47):
a Dynasty by Tenza Badu or also known as JJ McAvoy,
a sweeping tale of ambition, generational power, and the women
who shape empires from shadows explodes, uring the sacrifices, strategies,
and emotional costs of building and defending a legacy. We
(12:09):
are six weeks away from the release of fire Sword
incy on January thirteenth, twenty twenty six. Caribbean women Pirates,
Black women Pirates join French and Indigenous women to sail
the seas. Review this novel in idle wide and net Galley,
(12:32):
vote for it on good Reefs. Help me get folks
talking about this novel, and this week I'm highlighting Baldwin
Company through their website and bookshop dot org. Consider purchasing
fire Swortancy from Baldwin and Company or one of my
partners in the fight. Bookstores large and small who are
(12:54):
in this fight with me, Come on my red Let's
get everyone excited for truth. Show notes include a list
of books mentioned in this broadcast. You can find my
notes on substack or on my website Venessailly dot com
under the podcast link in the about tab. Don't let
(13:17):
this be a one time thing. Like and share and
subscribe to join the growing family at riteof Passage. Welcome aboard,
I heart you, thank you for listening. Hopefully you'll come again.
This is Venescereley
Welcome to the Rite of Passage with Vanessa Riley, the
podcast where storytelling meets passion in every page turns into
a new adventure. I'm your host, Vanessa Riley, and together
we'll dive deep into untold histories, reflect on current events
through a historical lands, share behind the scenes writing insights,
(00:29):
and explore the ups and downs of the author's journey
from rich historical novels to unforgettable characters to pop culture's
intrusion on the written word. Hey, we're going to explore
it all. So grab your pen, your notebook, and let's
begin our journey through the written word. Let's start your
(00:54):
Rite of passage. Lead like a pirate for the women
who do right, for the women who do wrong, for
the right reasons, for the women who burn it all down.
Find beauty in ashes, for the dreamers left behind, keep sailing.
(01:17):
That is the dedication of fire, sword and sea. For
lines that came to me as a battle cry. It's
a reminder that womanhood, especially when tied to leadership, has
never been a straight line. It bends, curves, breaks and rebuilds.
It demands courage, it requires clarity, and some time, it
(01:42):
lusts for fire recently, a friend, some one who does
not read much historical fiction, got an early look at
Fire Sword and see she's a reader of self help,
of business strategy, of the occasional thriller. You can sneak
into her hands. But she said something that stopped me cold. Vanessa,
(02:04):
you wrote a book about leadership, about women's leadership. At first,
I blinked, that wasn't the answer I was expecting. Yes,
my heroine, Jacquot de la Haye, is a pirate captain,
and yes, pirate captains are leaders by definition. But what
(02:24):
my friend saw was something deeper, something I wasn't consciously
aiming for, but had apparently woven into every scene, every
strike of a sword on a pirate ship. In the
sixteen hundreds, leadership wasn't inherited, it was earned. Pirate vessels
operated like meritocracies. Any race, any nationality could join as
(02:49):
long as they could pull their weight. Jaquat rises the
only way a woman in that era could, in disguise,
hidden behind the line. She relies on her skill with
a rapier, her mastery of the sea, her stamina and grit,
and her ability to steer a stolen ship through storms.
(03:11):
Both literal and moral pirates didn't buy their ships, they
took them, and Jaquat climbs the ladder of command, one
impossible task at a time. Through fire, sword and sea.
We see her rise, her missteps, her victories, her bruises,
(03:34):
physical and spiritual. And that, my friend said is leadership.
But leadership, especially women's leadership, is a complicated beast. You
often talk about women who lead in boardrooms, in startups,
in medicine, in politics, but historically and even now, women
(03:57):
occupy the caregiver role by de According to report released
in March by US Healthcare Workforce, eighty seven percent of
nurses are women. The Bureau of Labor Statistics says eighty
percent of health care workers are women. We are the
(04:19):
hospice nurses, the physician assistant, the physical therapists, the ones
tending to the young, the old, the fading, the forgotten.
And in the sixteen hundreds this was even more pronounced.
Before physicians, there were women who gathered herbs, mixed tinctures,
(04:41):
whispered prayers, held hands, and ushered people into life and
into death and sometimes back again to lead. Sometimes that
caregiving must be set aside, and that choice weighs heavy
on the nurturers. Then there is modernity. How does being
(05:05):
a mother affect leadership? How does being a wife? How
does being the one expected to build a home nurture
the family, care for the elders and the in law.
I remember climbing the corporate ladder and watching women. I admired,
women who mentored me delay motherhood until the last biological
(05:27):
viable second. One of my favorite bosses of Brilliant Irish
PhD in physics once had suits tailored specifically to hide
her pregnancy. Because of that time, maternity leave and career
advancement could not coexist in the same equation. This is
(05:49):
the landscape women navigate, a landscape Jaquat would have known
in a different form in a different century, but it
still hauntedly familiar. My friend, though, wanted to talk about
a dedication for the women who do right, for the
(06:09):
women who do wrong for the right reasons, because in
leadership there's always a moment, a crossroad when doing the
right thing may mean being complicit in something that isn't right.
Sometimes survival demands choices who would never make in a
(06:30):
perfect world. We see the consequences of huberous and hard
choices in our real world today. Not to get too political,
but right now there's a crisis in the Caribbean that
breaks my heart. US forces have fired on fishing vessels,
claiming they carry drugs, but no proof has been given.
(06:52):
Witness accounts suggest at least one boat was attacked without cause,
leaving two people clinging for life. It seems a second
strike was ordered to kill defenseless victims. If drugs were aboard,
they now sit at the bottom of the sea, destroyed
(07:13):
by the same guns that struck the fishermen. This needless
killing violates the Geneva Convention, the rules of war, and
basic humanity, and now investigations must happen to see how
leadership failed and who was complicit in illegal orders. It
is a horrible situation when the people in all levels
(07:37):
of the chain of command failed. It's horrid that those
below followed orders that were illegal. Leadership, good or bad,
always has accomplices, and that is part of the burden
and fire Sword and Sea took quiet and her crew
(07:59):
face their own moral storms. In the sixteen hundred, the
currency of the sea was not just gold or silver,
it was people, African people. A horrid truth I confronted
in my research was located in merchant records. I saw
(08:20):
seventeen guinea for a pewter bowl. At first I thought
they meant the coin minted for King Charles the second
with gold from the country Guinea, but that coin wasn't
popular in the Caribbean. The Spanish silver pieces of eight were.
It was upon further digging through these records that I
(08:43):
realized they were referring to people. Everyone from Africa are
commonly called Guinea in the sixteen hundreds, so a pewter
vessel was valued at seventeen guinea. Seen human life, imagine
a world where a pewter bull was worth more than
(09:05):
a child. So yes, fire Sortency has action and saga
and mystery. But beneath the adventure it wrestles with leadership, complicity, survival,
and the cost of chasing freedom in a world built
on stolen bodies. This book asks questions, what does it
(09:28):
take to lead, What is the price of doing the
right thing? What happens when you must choose between your
principles and your people? And how do women across eras
navigate these impossible intersections of duty, ambition, and care. I
(09:50):
cannot wait to have deeper conversations with you, about these
choices and about leadership. A return to fire, sword and seize.
Dedication for the women who do right, for the women
who do wrong, for the right reasons, for the women
(10:11):
who burn it all down, Find beauty and ashes for
the dreamers left behind. Keep sailing. Books to keep us
diving deeper into leadership are The Soul of a Woman
by Isabel Allende, a reflective non fiction exploration of feminism,
(10:36):
aging ambition, and the fight for autonomy across a lifetime.
Take Care of Them Like My Own by doctor Ala Stanford.
It's a powerful memoir of a black woman surgeon who
turned grief, racism, and systematic neglect into a movement that
vaccinated and cared for thousands during COVID nineteen Sora Eila
(11:01):
is running for Congress to lead the third Congressional District
of Philadelphia. Check her out. The Broken Earth Trilogy by N. K.
Jimison a brilliant speculative saga about oppressed women who wield
world shaking power, exploring trauma, leadership, survival, and righteous destruction.
(11:26):
I'm Medusa by Ayana Gray a bold, haunting retelling that
gives Medusa her voice back, revealing the girl behind the
myth and exploring power, wrath, injustice, and the cost of
becoming the monster the world insists you are. Birth of
(11:47):
a Dynasty by Tenza Badu or also known as JJ McAvoy,
a sweeping tale of ambition, generational power, and the women
who shape empires from shadows explodes, uring the sacrifices, strategies,
and emotional costs of building and defending a legacy. We
(12:09):
are six weeks away from the release of fire Sword
incy on January thirteenth, twenty twenty six. Caribbean women Pirates,
Black women Pirates join French and Indigenous women to sail
the seas. Review this novel in idle wide and net Galley,
(12:32):
vote for it on good Reefs. Help me get folks
talking about this novel, and this week I'm highlighting Baldwin
Company through their website and bookshop dot org. Consider purchasing
fire Swortancy from Baldwin and Company or one of my
partners in the fight. Bookstores large and small who are
(12:54):
in this fight with me, Come on my red Let's
get everyone excited for truth. Show notes include a list
of books mentioned in this broadcast. You can find my
notes on substack or on my website Venessailly dot com
under the podcast link in the about tab. Don't let
(13:17):
this be a one time thing. Like and share and
subscribe to join the growing family at riteof Passage. Welcome aboard,
I heart you, thank you for listening. Hopefully you'll come again.
This is Venescereley
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