Action This Day (K) – Historic Naval Fiction

Naval historian Richard Freeman who has written a number of non-fiction works has started a naval fiction series. The second book in the Commander Steadfast Thrillers, Action This Day, is now available for kindle download worldwide.

November 1941. After the dramatic sinking of his first command – HMS Defiant – Lieutenant Commander George Steadfast needs a break. But less than a week later he is called to the Admiralty. He is being sent straight off on another mission. And the orders for this one come straight from Sir Winston Churchill.

Steadfast is being sent to the Mediterranean to rescue an Albanian scientist called Janos Dobransky. Dobransky has invented a compound that is vital to the war effort. Unaware of his importance, the Italians have captured him and are keeping him and other prisoners in a fortress off the Albanian coast. It is of vital importance that he is rescued before the Germans realise who he is. The mission is top secret, and Steadfast’s orders are clear: Get Dobransky back. No high jinks. No bravado. Just straight in and straight out.

With the fortress manned from all sides, how will Steadfast manage to infiltrate the island? Can he complete his mission without the Nazi’s catching wind of what Churchill is up to? Or will his latest – and most daring – mission be his last…?

‘Action This Day’ is a gripping naval thriller that combines convincing period detail with full-throttle story-telling, with almost every incident based on a true event in one of the thousands of convoys during the Second World War. It is the follow up to ‘First Command’.

via Action This Day (K) – Historic Naval Fiction.

Review: The Shantyman by Rick Spilman – Historic Naval Fiction

If you want to be taken to the deck of a clipper in the mountainous seas of a southern ocean gale, Rick Spilman is the author for you. His description of life at sea in such vessels are vivid and bring to life the conditions faced by the officers and crew of such vessels.

In his latest book, The Shantyman, he tells the story of one such crew, on the Alahambra, voyaging from Sydney to New York in 1870. Jack Barlow is hoisted aboard paralytic drunk but proves to be not just an able shantyman, but when the captain dies and the murderous mate is washed overboard, the man who will pull the crew together and as the new captain get them home. Facing the southern ocean ice and later a hurricane, he overcomes his tragic past to get them to safety and restart his life.

Successful, tragedy strikes again, but will the crew he has saved now rally round and manage to save him.

A fast paced and well written story of life at sea and also of New York at this time. Hard to put down and highly recommended.

via Review: The Shantyman by Rick Spilman – Historic Naval Fiction.

Review: Eleanor’s Odyssey by Joan Druett – Historic Naval Fiction

At the height of the Napoleonic wars East Indiaman faced the perils of a long hazardous voyage and enemy privateers to bring the wealth of the far east back to England. Shortly after the war ended the The Asiatic Journal and Monthly Register for British and Foreign India, China, and Australia began a serialisation of the diaries of Eleanor Reid who accompanied her husband Hugh, the captain of the Indiaman Friendship, on one such voyage from Ireland to New South Wales, the South Sea, the Spice Islands, Bengal, and then back to Europe between 1799 and 1801. In her latest book Eleanor’s Odyssey, award winning author Joan Druett has brought to life this long forgotten manuscript.

Eleanor must have been a keen observer as she brings to life not just her time aboard ship at sea and in port but also the flora and fauna and the life of both the European and native populations in the places visited. Druett has enhanced what would have been an interesting read on it’s own by preceding each chapter with a well researched commentary of what is known about the ship, crew, passengers, events and places visited. A wealth of detail that brings the period to life for the reader. The book concludees with a chapter on what happened to Eleanor and her husband in the years following the voyage.

This is a fascinating read for anyone interested in learning more about life both in the far east at the time and aboard an East Indiaman. Highly Recommended

via Review: Eleanor’s Odyssey by Joan Druett – Historic Naval Fiction.

Paradise (PB/K) – Historic Naval Fiction

G. L. Tysk recently released a sequel to her whaling fiction novel based around native Hawaiian characters. Paradise is now available worldwide in paperback and for kindle download.

In 1849, Honolulu town, newly named the Hawaiian kingdom’s capital, is caught halfway between worlds. The former backwater is now an international port for whalers and merchants, and Honolulu is where men go to seek their fortunes – until the discovery of gold in California changes everything.

Amid these early days of the Gold Rush, whaleship captain Daniel Ellis and Takao, his boatsteerer, sail into Honolulu for a brief stopover. When things don’t go as planned, they’ll need to turn to someone for help. Who better than Takao’s brother, Shima, who now lives just outside Honolulu, working as a physician and well connected within the Hawaiian elite?

But Shima has changed, too, and he has his own secrets. In this sequel to “The Sea-God at Sunrise”, Ellis and Takao may find that the biggest battles they’ll face are not at sea against monsters of the deep, but in the harbors and valleys of Oahu against friend and brother.

via Paradise (PB/K) – Historic Naval Fiction.

New Trilogy by Richard Woodman – Historic Naval Fiction

Richard Woodman is the well known author of the naval fiction series about Nathaniel Drinkwater and more recently of a series set during the English Civil War about Kit Faulkner. Now he has just released the first book in a new trilogy, Sword of State: The Forging.

The Sword of State Trilogy recreates the true story of George Monck, a giant of the 17th Century who is all but forgotten today and who has not been the focus of a series as far as I am aware.

Whilst from the cover description the first book in the series does not appear to be nautical, Monck became one of the famous Generals of the Sea under Cromwell’s Commonwealth during the First Anglo/Dutch War. He was also instrumental in the restoration of Charles II and was created 1st Duke of Albemarle.

Fans of the genre may therefore wish to purchase this book as an integral part of a naval series.

Winter 1644, the Tower of London.

Colonel George Monck is confined to his prison chamber in St Thomas’s tower, charged with high treason. A brilliant soldier, admiral and military governor, Monck joined the King’s men in besieging Nantwich. But the Parliamentary side’s more disciplined army successfully routed them, and Monck was thrown in jail.

Brooding and despondent, Monck’s troubles look to intensify when he starts an affair with Anne Ratsford, a married woman who is caring for him in The Tower. In an age when adultery is not only a mortal sin, but a capital offence, Monck is not only risking his reputation, but his life. But then his fortunes begin to change.

Word of his prowess has reached Parliament, and he is offered a position within their army. All that stands in his way is his honour…

In ‘The Forging’, the first book in the ‘Sword of the State’ trilogy, award-winning author Richard Woodman recreates the true story of George Monck, a giant of the 17th Century. Monck is all but forgotten today, yet his legacy is nothing less than the British monarchy and a famous regiment – the Coldstream Guards.

via New Trilogy by Richard Woodman – Historic Naval Fiction.

Storm Warning (PB/K) – Historic Naval Fiction

Nick Korolev has a new book which was recently released worldwide, Storm Warning. It is available in paperback and ebook versions.

Slavery. A crime against humanity and basis for a whole economy in one of the most shameful aspects of our history is the backdrop against which Storm Warning is painted. Based on a true and all but forgotten incident, part sea chase and part courtroom drama, it is the story of the capture, trial and execution of Captain Nathanial Gordon, the only man in history to face conviction for slave trading, Commander Sylvanus Godon, who captured him at sea and those men who brought him to justice and fought in his defense in a landmark case that reaches from the Circuit Court of the Southern District of New York City all the way to Washington and the new President Lincoln.

via Storm Warning (PB/K) – Historic Naval Fiction.