This book is a suspenseful and exciting easy read with its many twists and turns. It makes me understand how people of its generation lived without movies or television. Southworth has the power to captivate readers and bring them into the world she creates. I would recommend this book to anyone.

After reading this book, the only thought that came to my mind was that the heroine was just lucky to get through all the hurdles without even a scratch.

Too fantastic to digest. But then aren't all such books are.

I just couldn't understand few things, how Capitola managed to get out of every difficulty without problem, and how, all the smart villians, become dumb and do the stupidest act while she is there (whether they know it or not) and things are always in favour of our great heroine?

Capitola is a true heroin! Once you buy this book you'll never be able to put it down. Capitola is a lovable character and Ms. E.D.E.N Southworth, did a marvelous job at selecting each of her characters including Captain Hurricane, Black Donald (the criminal) Capitola is a remarkabl eyoung girl and you'll definately laugh and cry with her through out the book! I recommend this book to all who have read such novels as Pride and Prejudice and Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen! You'll LOVE this book!

I just loved this book. I started out reading it for a class, but the class was cancelled. I finished it anyway, and I think everyone should read this book. Capitola is sassy and brave and daring and smart.Everything a heroine should be!!

Southworth's novel maniupulates many of the tropes of sentimental fiction in a uniquely subversive way. She stuffs it all within her pages- the damsel in distress, the dastardly villian, the orphan- but ultimately achieves a surprisingly feminist ideology. Her heroine, Capitola, is self reliant, creative, and genuinely heroic. She romps through Southworth's pages comically overturning many of the 19th century's most concretized stereotypes about femininity. All told, it is a marvelous read, deceptively subtle, surprisingly subversive, impossible to set aside once begun due to its breathless narrative rate. Well worth the investment.