This mystery is set aboard a Royal Navy ship during a post-Revolutionary French-English conflict, but Patrick O'Brian it's not. Donachie is a competent but not inspired author whose work never rises above the level of cliche. Privateer Harry Ludlow encounters Oliver Carter, the captain who caused...
A chronicle of the fascinating early years of Horatio Nelson and Emma Lyon. Both determined to rise from obscurity, they set about making their ways through the world with corresponding recklessness and precocious ambition. Nelson enters the Royal Navy at the age of twelve and is made post captai...
It's 1784 and Nelson is sent to the Caribbean to enforce the hated Navigation Acts. While there, he marries Fanny Nisbet. Ordered next to the Mediterranean, he engages in a string of spectacular naval battles: Cape St Vincent, Tenerife, and the Nile. The ravages of war take their physical toll on...
The discovery of an abandoned Spanish merchant ship off the coast of America plunges the Ludlows into a far-reaching conspiracy fueled by jealousy, ambition and nationalistic fervor. The Bucephalas lies trapped under the gaping muzzles of the 32-pounder Spanish guns of New Orleans' harbor fort. I...
Pressed into King George's Navy for the second time in a month, John Pearce and his Pelicans find themselves working aboard the HMS Brazen, sailing the Channel from Plymouth to Dover in search of the numerous French privateers that prey on English merchant shipping: her task to stop them and, if ...
London 1793: Young firebrand John Pearce is illegally pressganged from the refuge of the Pelican tavern to a brutal life aboard HMS Brilliant, a frigate on its way to war. In the first few days Pearce discovers the Navy is a world in which he can prosper. But he is not alone; he is drawn to a gro...
Stranded in Portsmouth, John Pearce has once again failed to secure the release of those who depended on him - his fellow Pelicans. They have been shipped off to the Mediterranean while he was indulging himself in London. He must take ship and follow them.
Having evacuated the King and Queen of Naples ahead of Napoleon's advancing army, Nelson must now await developments in Sicily. In the meantime, he and Emma savor their passionate affair, and when Nelson travels back to Britain with the Hamiltons, he finds he is the toast of Europe. Finally he is...
They worked with gusto to get out the ship’s armament, no easy task since each cannon had to he hoisted out through its own gunport by a system of ropes, restraints and pulleys, in a complicity of knots that completely foxed John Pearce. Thankfully, his only task was an occasional one of necessar...
She kept repeating that one word.” “How amusing,” said Charles Greville, though both his tone and the sour look on his pale serious face belied his words. They were in a coach, heading back from Windsor. Sir William had used his right as a returning...
Intelligence on events in the French camp was good, though not as precise, it was suspected, as the amount of knowledge the Jacobins had about matters inside the perimeter. Toulon had its spies: dissatisfied indigenes and those pretending to be refugees, while it was suspected that the Dons were ...
The Admiralty used postal packets to send fleet despatches on from England and vice versa. That such missives rarely contained anything approaching decisions of a strategic nature did not dent their value. In addition, packets carried everyday mail, the letters of sailors and soldiers penned to t...
Now it was obvious why Dugommier had taken such a risk with his attack. Given the shallow topsoil it was impossible to dig deep, angled trenches, which meant that most of the work was above ground. They would build a parallel with stones and earth, and work to make it impregnable before sapping f...
‘What narks me is that you don’t think things through.’ ‘What’s to think on, Cole? We do as you say and put a knife into Pearce’s ribs. He does what we ask or he dies.’ Cephas Danvers imparted this with conviction, a feeling shared by the other two judging by their vigorous nods, which got a snor...
Sir Phillip Stephens was the person to whom he had despatched an enquiry regarding Lieutenant Raynesford, prompted by the appearance of the name in the social column of the Hampshire Chronicle as having recently arrived at the King’s Head in Lymington. First he would ackno...
Indeed, the bustle of the city was reassuring: not for the inhabitants of this place a ten-of-the-clock attendance on their tasks. On being admitted to Winston’s chambers – a busy apiary of small offices staffed by men all engaged in various commodity trades – claiming to have been at work for se...
Pearce was on the deck, pacing back and forth, having attended Divine Service, really just a homily produced by the ship’s captain. Several of the recovering wounded, now including those who had suffered in the recent storm, had either come or been brought up to enjoy the air and, given they were...
It seemed the junior members of the wardroom thought so if not the premier – he was plied with eggs and ham, a whole pigeon in a pie as well as a suet pudding and as much coffee as he could consume, given he declined wine. If they were not partisan on behalf of John Pearce, some must be quite the...