David's HNF Blog
My HNF blog includes author interviews, subsequent edition releases, any other nautical literature news, etc.
![The Life and Times of Horatio Hornblower](/images/stories/bookcovers/n/northcoteparkinson1a.jpg)
- Details
- By: David Hayes
There's good news for fans of C.S. Forester's famous naval hero, Horatio Hornblower. C. Northcote Parkinson's companion book The Life and Times of Horatio Hornblower is to be reprinted. A paperback version will be available in the US on 2 April 2024 and UK on 2 June 2024. It is now available for pre-order.
At the same time his anthology, Portsmouth Point: The Navy in Fiction, 1793-1815, will also be reprinted
![Set Course for Trafalgar](/images/stories/bookcovers/e/edwardson5.jpg)
- Details
- By: David Hayes
I've just added a new author to the site, George Edwardson. Of particular interest may be his two book 'The Sea Officer' series. This follows the extraordinary true career of Irish sailor Amos Freeman Westropp who spent over 30 years in the Royal Navy during the turbulent years of the Napoleonic Wars.
He served in a dozen ships and fought in some of the great sea battles of the time against the French, Dutch and Spanish fleets during the course of which he met, amongst others, Admiral Lord Nelson, Admiral Villeneuve, the Duke of Wellington and the Emperor Napoleon.
Amos Freeman Westropp is presumably an ancestor of the author who writes under a pseudonym but is George Westropp, an amateur historian and genealogist.
Also available is his four book 'The Wharton Series' the most recent book of which, Goliath, was released in September 2023.
![Ill Winds Blowing Across a Troubled Sea](/images/stories/bookcovers/m/mcmillin6.jpg)
- Details
- By: David Hayes
Author Mark M. McMillin has been updated with a new Privateer series, Captain Bloody Mary, the Queen's Privateer. Set in Elizabethan times with a female 'hero', it consists of three books, The Butcher's Daughter: A Journey Between Worlds, Blood for Blood: The Uncertain Journey and Ill Winds Blowing Across a Troubled Sea: The Journey's End
![Tyranny's Bloody Standard](/images/stories/bookcovers/d/davies19.jpg)
- Details
- By: David Hayes
Over the years I have been running this site, if there is one question I have been asked more than any other, it's "Are there any english language books written from the French point of view". There may be some where "our hero" is captured and spends a few chapters on a French ship and one book a few year ago came close to being the start of a series, but effectively the answer has been no. However things have changed and historian J. D. Davies has taken up the challenge with a new series 'The Philippe Kermorvant Thrillers'. I wanted to know more and reached out to David who has been kind enough to share an article with us.
‘ARE WE THE BAD GUYS?’: OR, THREE NAUTICAL FICTION WRITERS WALK INTO A BAR
In the best traditions of historical novels, certain facts have been modified for reasons of dramatic licence. In this particular case, there were more than three of us. But we were definitely in a bar – in a hotel in Cumbernauld, of all places – and during the course of our conversation, one of our number mentioned how regrettable it was that to all intents and purposes there were virtually no novels in English set in the ‘classic age’ of naval historical fiction, namely the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars. (Which is more dramatic licence; delete ‘virtually’.)