Nick Turnhouse is a Dorset farmhand, a third son with nothing to inherit and no future, working his father's land for his keep. He is also tall, powerfully built, and handsome, and crosses the path of Squire's impressionable daughter. Nick has to run, fast, with ten shillings and his father's blessing. Luckily, or so he thinks, he comes across a kind gentleman who can help him. After Nick is persuaded to say that he is looking for work, he discovers the man is recruiting for the Navy, and Nick has just 'volunteered in fact'.

England, 1940: When seventeen-year-old John Sharratt’s life is shattered by a single, devastating bomb dropped by the Luftwaffe, he is thrust into a world of loss and longing. With his family gone and his heart heavy, John’s conscription into the army offers a refuge and a new beginning, even in the face of turmoil. As he dons the battledress of a British soldier at Seaforth Barracks, John embarks on an intense journey of transformation.

Captain Nathaniel Perry has survived the Battle of Waterloo with some slight distinction, and finds himself respected in his fashionable mess on the regiment's return to England. That is a problem, for he has no private income. He had managed well enough on his pay on campaign, but could not do so in the Peace. Simultaneously with his promotion to major in acknowledgement of his actions at the Battle, he is called to London at the behest of a dying grandfather, a merchant who had disowned him, disapproving of his mother's marriage. Perry discovers he is the sole surviving heir . . . and rich.

The short-lived Peace of Amiens is over. Entered into in bad faith, the Peace has provided both sides with the chance to take a breath and restock their arsenals. Sir Nicholas Turnhouse, Bloody Nick, has recovered from his wound and is ready to go to sea again, supported by his lady. Only at sea will he be able to achieve the promotion in rank and honors that both believe to be his due. He is given Hawke, 44, again and sets out for the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea to tidy up the remnants of Napoleon's Army of Egypt.

Captain Turnhouse RN—Bloody Nick—is still in the Mediterranean, nursing his experimental frigate and enjoying the mixed blessings of being favored by Old Jervie, a hard but just taskmaster. The French are still reeling from the shock of the Battle of the Nile, the Ottoman Empire is hastening into decline, the Spanish are in their customary disarray, and the Barbary Rovers are enjoying a resurgence. The Mediterranean is in a state of chaos—ideal for a predatory young captain, even if at first in an unreliable ship.

Everyone could see it coming. But one man could do something about it. Oh, he couldn't avert the nuclear holocaust, but a scientist in Austria, ruthlessly using billions of research dollars for his own purposes, set himself up and out: he created a time machine, and filled a warehouse with low-tech survival gear. Too bad he didn't get to use it himself. Instead, a team of American grad students, led by their professor, is sent back to the late Roman Empire. Even though they are experts in this time and place, they are about to realize that books and actual experience are very different things.

In the unforgiving docklands of east London, young orphan William must do all he can to survive. Like the other ‘wharf rats', his life of petty crime is not a choice; it's a necessity. But William's misdeeds won't remain hidden for long. When the boy unknowingly steals from a murderous pirate captain, escape is his only option. He is forced to stow away and begin a life that will take him to the far side of the world; a life as a soldier of the East India Company.

Captain Carlisle hails from Virginia, a loyal colony of the British Crown. As the clouds of war gather, Carlisle's small frigate is ordered to Toulon on a reconnaissance mission. If battling the winter weather in the Gulf of Lions is not a sufficient challenge, Carlisle must also juggle the delicate diplomatic issues in this period of pre-war tension while contending with an increasingly belligerent French frigate. But Carlisle has additional problems unique to his colonial origins.

Lieutenant Gilbert Maltravers is bored. It is 1912 and he has been promoted as fast as any in his Dartmouth class and is placed in a battleship where he can confidently look forward to promotion to post captain and a battleship of his own by the time he is forty. All he needs to do is keep a smart ship, polish the brass and salute every senior officer, while wearing an expensive uniform that testifies he is one of the right sort. His father is an admiral, so very little can go wrong.

An engineer finds himself in an alternate reality, Cornwall, in the year 715 A.D. He awakens in the body of a young Baron.