Originally published on the The Old Salt Blog

I recently had recommended to me Robert Redick’s The Red Wolf Conspiracy, a fantasy epic which is almost exclusively set aboard the Imperial Merchant Ship Chathard, a 600 year old sailing ship of immerse proportions and age that sets out on a mission of mystery and intrigue with a huge crew and equally large and varied cast of characters. 

 A Battle Won by S. Thomas Russell, continues the adventures of Charles Hayden, the son of an English naval captain and a French mother. His hopes for a new command following his promotion to Master and Commander are dashed when the Port Admiral sends him back into his former ship, the frigate Themis, as a “job-captain” with orders to deliver the ship to Admiral Hood in the Mediterranean following which he will again be unemployed. Despite the lateness of the season the ship must join the escort of a convoy across the Bay of Biscay and the ships reputation as a "mutiny ship" soon finds his in conflict with the other escort captains.

Originally published on the The Old Salt Blog

The just released, A Battle Won by S. Thomas Russell, is classic nautical fiction – vivid, fast paced and full of drama, both on sea and land.  Master and Commander Charles Hayden is a gifted naval commander with extremely bad luck. In the previous book, Under Enemy Colors, found himself serving aboard HMS Themis, a frigate with a tyrannical captain and a mutinous crew. Now in A Battle Won, instead of being allowed to take command of his own ship, Hayden is reassigned back to the Themis, a ship with such a bad reputation that no captain wants the command. 

This first book in the Maritime adventures of Charles Hayden soon had me turning the pages. Hayden, is a young lieutenant, the son of an English father and a French mother which has held back his career. When he joins his new ship, the frigate Themis, under the command of Captain Josiah Hart, the officers and men seem at odds with the captain and near to mutiny.

Hayden stuggles to maintain order and get the ship into the war without the support of his captain and you are soon wondering whose side he will take in the internal conflict.

Originally published on the The Old Salt Blog

Pirates of the Narrow Sea, Book 1 – Sallee Rovers by M. Kei is well written nautical adventure fiction with a twist or two, or perhaps three.

The novel is not set during the Napoleonic wars and features, as the title suggests, Sallee Rovers, Barbary Coast corsairs, sailing from the Atlantic coast of what is now Morocco.  In this novel the Spanish are the villains while British are not necessarily the heroes. The corsairs are the somewhat more heroic of the novel’s contending forces. The main character is a young, British officer, Lt. Peter Thorton, who for a range of reasons, both logistical and personal, gets caught up with the corsairs and eventually joins them. 

There are a number of naval fiction books that feature the Battle of the Capes where the French Fleet under the Comte De Grasse defeated the British under Admiral Graves. Invariably they refer to the surrender of the British Army under Cornwallis at Yorktown as resulting from this action but little detail is given.

This new book George Washington's Great Gamble by James L. Nelson explores both the land and sea events that led up to the battle. Starting with the arrival of the initial French forces and the defection of Benedict Arnold it follows the manouveres and disposition of the forces on both sides. It is clear from the quoted correspondence that Washington was clear throughout that the British could not be defeated while they had naval superiority and could move there forces by sea and that therefore the intervention of a French fleet would be vital.