The dramatic red cover of Vancouver author Diane Tullson’s second novel promises blood, and teen readers will not be disappointed by this modern-day pirate yarn.

Fourteen-year-old Libby has been coerced into a year-long sailing trip with her mother and stepfather, Duncan. Rebelling against what she sees as her mother’s abandonment of her biological father and family disapproval of her wastrel boyfriend, Libby does her best to make the trip a torture, even unfairly accusing Duncan of sexual abuse.

All this changes when pirates attack, kill Duncan, seriously wound her mother, and strip the boat of everything useful. Alone and adrift, Libby is thrown back on her own strength of character and the few resources the pirates missed. She patches bullet holes, improvises a diaper for her unconscious mother, frees the boat’s propeller, and sails to safety. In surviving, Libby gains a new perspective on the world.

Red Sea is a standard adventure/coming-of-age tale, but it’s particularly well done. Tullson makes Libby utterly convincing, both as a selfish, bratty teen who constantly changes the ground rules in arguments with her mother, and as a frightened kid struggling with forces much more powerful than herself.

Tullson’s descriptions are vivid and original – the dust in Djibouti is “like particles of people and animals and African desert as old as anything on earth” – and she does not shy away from the harsher aspects of the story. The pirate attack, with its bloody death and attempted rape, is compelling and genuinely frightening.

Already nominated for the American Library Association Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adult Readers, Red Sea, with its believable characters, fast pace, and gritty realism, will appeal to many teens who normally have trouble sitting down with a book.