Naval Fiction

Summer comes to Ireland, and an uneasy peace holds at Loch Garman. The Northmen, eager to get to sea, work relentlessly on their ships, with the aid of their unlikely allies, the Irish, who are just as eager to see them go. But not everyone is willing to just let them sail away. Certain that God demands the heathens be punished, the one-eyed warrior turned monk Brother Becc is determined that Thorgrim and his men will not simply go free. And when another band of raiders arrives, Becc finds the excuse he needs to take action.

Stuck in an alternate universe during World War II, Lieutenant Commander Matthew Reddy of the U.S.S. Walker has found an unlikely but invaluable ally in Commodore Jenks of the New Britain Imperial Navy. And now they are united in their desire to hunt down the traitor who abducted two women both men would die to protect: Reddy's love, nurse Sandra Tucker, and young Princess Rebecca of the New British Empire. But first they have a new battle to win. However, this battle will not be fought with broadsides and broadswords, but with cunning and intrigue.

Scott Bradley James arrives in Annapolis, Maryland, as a plebe in the class of 1941 without a terribly good idea why he wants to be a naval officer, other than that his father was a sailor, and he wants to see the world, whatever that means. Scott and his roommate become fast friends, and, after surviving scrapes of their own making, the two fetch up at Pearl Harbor. War is brewing, and their class has graduated early. They have been sent to battle stations.

1809. After his heroic actions during the retreat to Corunna, Captain Sir Thomas Kydd is the toast of London society. Here he falls in with the legendary frigate captain Lord Thomas Cochrane. So begins a relationship, professional and personal, that will be unlike any that Kydd has known: a relationship that will lead him, almost simultaneously, to first glory, then ruin.

By late 1759 it is clear that France is losing the Seven Years War. In a desperate gamble, the French Atlantic and Mediterranean fleets combine to dominate the Channel and cover a landing in the south of England, but they are annihilated by Admiral Hawke at Quiberon Bay. Meanwhile, a diversionary landing is planned in the north of Britain, and it sails from Dunkirk before news of the disaster at Quiberon Bay can reach its commander.

A fighter, rogue, and ladies man, Alan Lewrie has done the unthinkable and gotten himself hitched--to a woman and a ship! The woman is the lovely Caroline Chiswick. The ship is the gun ketch, Alacrity, bound for the Bahamas and a bloody game of cat and mouse with the pirates who ply the lunatic winds there. But while war comes naturally to the young husband, politics doesn't.

Lewrie loses his ship and his command when he receives news that Vigilance must return to England to be decommissioned and turned over to the dockyards for a complete refit. Lewrie is grounded, put on half-pay, and his crew disperses to look for new positions. It's late autumn, and being ashore is heavenly, after a time. Lewrie spends time with his wife, Jessica, helps his son Hugh find a new ship, and happily marries off Charlotte. Life onshore is quiet until Lewrie finds himself once again in the headlines of the city papers.

After gaining valuable experience as an aide to Governor Lord Horatio Hornblower, William Brewer is rewarded with a posting as first lieutenant on the frigate HMS Defiant, bound for American waters. Early in their travels, it seems as though Brewer’s greatest challenge will be evading the wrath of a tyrannical captain who has taken an active dislike to him. But when a hurricane sweeps away the captain, the young lieutenant is forced to assume command of the damaged ship, and a crew suffering from low morale.

Rocks and Shoals is the seventh of the Carlisle & Holbrooke naval adventures. The series follows Carlisle and his protégé George Holbrooke through the Seven Years War and into the period of turbulent relations between Britain and her American colonies in the 1760s.

Aboard the guided-missile frigate USS Turner Van Zandt, Lieutenant-Commander Dan Lenson and his dedicated crew take on a daring assignment: escort a convoy of supertankers through the mine-filled Persian Gulf. For Lenson and his men, however, the danger is only just beginning. When a missile from a hit-and-run enemy sinks a US destroyer, every ship and aircraft in the area goes on red alert.

A Spanish colonial governor and his family are pursued through the Caribbean by a pair of mysterious ships from the Dutch island of St. Eustatius. The British frigate Medina rescues the governor from his hurricane-wrecked ship, leading Captain Edward Carlisle and his first lieutenant George Holbrooke into a web of intrigue and half-truths. Are the Dutchmen operating under a letter of marque, or are they pirates, and why are they hunting the Spaniard? Only the diplomatic skills of Carlisle’s aristocratic wife, Lady Chiara, can solve the puzzle.

Patrick O'Brian transports you to the high seas of the Napoleonic era when the French demagogue is making a desperate attempt to control the European world. While Napoleon pursues the British across Europe, rumors fly about him forging a secret link with the forces of Islam. Soon an ominous horde of Muslim mercenaries gather.

Captain Alan Lewrie and his small squadron defeat four French frigates off northern Spain, winning honor, glory, and renown. So, why is such a successful captain suddenly without a ship, or another active commission? Why do rumors swirl that jealous foes' powerful patrons are blighting his career? Months on end ashore, even in entertaining London getting his portrait painted, put him in serious sulks. Well, the artist is the sister of one of his midshipmen, a delightful and talented young lady of a modern outlook, but not modern enough to become Lewrie's lover.

Fort Niagara is the key to the American continent. Whoever owns that lonely outpost at the edge of civilisation controls the entire Great Lakes region. Pitt’s grand strategy for 1759 is to launch a three-pronged attack on Canada. One army would move north from Lake Champlain, a second would sail up the St Lawrence to capture Quebec, and a third force would strike across the wilderness to Lake Ontario and French-held Fort Niagara. Commander George Holbrooke is seconded to command the six hundred boats to carry the army through the rivers and across Lake Ontario.

It is 1801, and President Thomas Jefferson has assembled a deep-water navy to fight the growing threat of piracy, as American civilians are regularly kidnapped by Islamist brigands and held for ransom, enslaved, or killed, all at their captors' whim. The Berber States of North Africa, especially Tripoli, claimed their faith gave them the right to pillage anyone who did not submit to their religion.

Two hundred years after nuclear and chemical weapons have nearly annihilated the global population, the last of mankind struggles on in isolated communities. Law and order is carried out by the Political Office, black-clad police who rule through fear and violence, commanding the world's survivors how to think, how to act, and when to obey the call to the Gathering: the ritual massing for war against an unknown and unseen enemy. Now the call has come, and all nations must pay tribute.

It is the summer of 1760 and the British navy reigns supreme on the oceans of the world; only in the Mediterranean is its mastery still seriously challenged. Admiral Saunders is sent with a squadron of ships-of-the-line to remind those nations that are still neutral of the consequences of siding with the French.

At the opening of the War of 1812, the British control the most powerful navy on earth, and Americans are again victims of piracy. Bliven Putnam, late of the Battle of Tripoli, is dispatched to Charleston to outfit and take command of a new 20-gun brig, the USS Tempest. Later, aboard the Constitution, he sails into the furious early fighting of the war.

It is 1796 and a diminutive, Corsican-born French general has inherited a ragtag army and turned it into an unstoppable fighting force. Within months, Napoleon's storm rolls across Italy and strikes a lethal blow against the Austrian empire. But while the soil of Piedmont and Tuscany runs with blood, another battle takes shape on the mysterious Adriatic Sea. Alan Lewrie and his 18-gun sloop, HMS Jester, part of a squadron of four British warships, sail into the thick of it.

Three mismatched troop transports, lots of 29-foot barges, and an under-strength regiment of foot - a waste of Royal Navy money, a doomed experiment, or a new way to bedevil Napoleon's army in Italy? Either way, it's Capt. Sir Alan Lewrie's idea, and it seems to be working, with successful raids all along the coast of Calabria. But it depends on timely information, and Lewrie must trust Don Julio Caesare, a lord of a Sicilian criminal underworld, and his minions, or the amateur efforts of a disorganized network of Calabrian partisans.