Showing results by author "James L. Nelson" in All Categories

For centuries, the Vikings have swept out of the Norse countries and fallen on whatever lands they could reach aboard their longships, and few could resist the power of their violent onslaught. They came at first to plunder and then to settle, an encroachment fiercely resisted wherever they went. Such was the case in the southern lands of Ireland. En route to the Viking longphort there, known as Dubh-linn, Thorgrim Night Wolf and Ornolf the Restless stumble across an Irish ship.

In the summer of 1776, a fleet of British transport ships is looming off Staten Island, while the remnants of General George Washington’s army huddle behind hastily constructed fortifications on Brooklyn Height. There, Washington is preparing for the final destruction of the Continental army. Now Captain Isaac Biddlcomb receives a monumental order: to transport to France the most dangerous secret weapon in the country’s arsenal: scientist and philosopher Benjamin Franklin.

As the War of Independence begins in earnest, American merchant seamen prepare to strike the first blows. None strikes more deftly than Isaac Biddlecomb, captain of the Judea, whose smuggling activities are making a mockery of His Majesty’s Royal Navy. Pursued by HMS Rose, he sacrifices the ship he loved to the depths, together with the fortune he stood to gain, rather than surrender.

It’s the winter of 1776, a year that brings with it a fiery new spirit of colonial independence. Tensions simmering over a decade have finally come to a boil, and the rebel government in Philadelphia, determined to cast off the chains of British tyranny, has authorized the creation of the United States Navy—a brazen act of American aggression against the greatest maritime power in the world.

Eager to return to his native Norway, Thorgrim agrees to participate in one last raid under the command of a man he does not trust. But the Northmen, he finds, are no longer simply invaders on foreign soil. They have become a part of the Irish kings' ongoing struggle for power, and, far from securing a means to return home, Thorgrim and his men are plunged into a battle for the throne of Tara - a battle that will test their strength and loyalty as none has before.

Jack Biddlecomb has much to live up to, being as he is the eldest son of the esteemed Captain Isaac Biddlecomb, wealthy merchant captain, leading light of the War for American Independence, and newly minted congressman. Jack finds himself off to a promising start, however, when he’s given command of the merchant vessel Abigail bound from Philadelphia for Barbados. But even before the dock lines are cast off, the voyage, which should have been routine, begins to look like a stormy passage indeed.

Having survived the bloody Battle of New Orleans and the loss of their ironclad Yazoo River, captain Samuel Bowater, engineer Hieronymus Taylor, and the survivors of their crew are given new orders—take command of an ironclad warship being built in Memphis, Tennessee. Bowater and his men take passage upriver from “Mississippi” Mike Sullivan, one of the wild, undisciplined captains of the River Defense Squadron, only to find, on their arrival, that their ship is not even half built and the enemy is closing fast.

With their longships storm-blown to the southern coast of Engla-land, Thorgrim Night Wolf and his men find themselves rich with plunder and safely ensconced in a priory called Christchurch. But that cannot last. Thorgrim, in a wolf dream, has seen the enemy armies closing in, and he knows that their peace will soon be at an end. The gods do not go so easy on him and his men. He has learned that through experience and hard use. Nor are the gods the only threat they face.

More than one hundred years after Columbus blundered onto Hispaniola, the West Indies are held in Spain's iron fist, and no threat to that absolute rule is tolerated. But such total control cannot last, and one threat will emerge as the most dangerous of all: the buccaneers. Camped on the shore of Hispaniola, these half-wild men eke out a living hunting the island's feral livestock. Among them, Jean-Baptiste LeBoeuf lives out his exile, content that no one in the hunters' camp is curious about his past. But when a hurricane sweeps through the Caribbean, it upends their rough existence.

Spring has come to Ireland, where Thorgrim Night Wolf, new-made Lord of Vík-ló, and the 300 Viking warriors under his command have suffered through a brutal winter. Despite having accomplished much during the months of cold and rain, the patience of the men has worn thin, and anger and frustration threaten to tear the ships' crews apart. But just as the men are turning on one another, a local Irish lord arrives with a proposal, a plan for Irish and Norse to join together in a raid.

In the late summer of 1775, General George Washington discovers that his cache of gunpowder has dwindled to a mere nine shots per man. A desperate plan is hatched—to send a ship under the command of Captain Isaac Biddlecomb to Bermuda to capture the British powder known to be there. But the plan is a trap, set by a traitor among the patriots, and one from which even Biddlecomb cannot escape.

Fed up with an outlaw existence, Calico Jack Rackam swears off the pirate life, but he hasn’t reckoned with Anne Bonny, a woman who would as soon stab a man as give him a good tumble—that is, unless he’s a pirate. Soon Jack finds himself out on the high seas again, with Anne by his side and his men spoiling for action. And when they capture a Dutch merchant ship, they pick up an unlikely crewmate as well, an expert sword fighter and topmast seaman who has a secret: he just happens to be a woman named Mary. Together they cut a bold swath through the West Indies.

With their ill-fated raid on the monastary at Glendalough torn apart by betrayal and defeat, Thorgrim Night Wolf and his handful of survivors from the crew of Sea Hammer find themselves in desperate and tenuous straits. Stranded far from the safety of Vik-lo, surrounded by enemies, and with barely enough men to work the longship's oars, the Norsemen must make their way back through a dangerous and uncertain country. Thorgrim, however, is not interested in mere survival. His one thought, his one desire, is to take revenge.

Thorgrim Night Wolf, now somewhere on the south coast of Engla-land, may be closer to his goal of returning home than he has been since reaching Ireland years before, but he is still very, very far away. His son Harald, however, has ambitions beyond just getting home. Given command of one of the ships in the fleet, Harald sees a chance to put his courage on display, unleashing consequences that will lead Thorgrim into a fight against the powerful armies of Wessex, a fight he does not want.

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.

Having recovered from the wounds of battle and having won for himself a fortune, a crew, and a longship, Thorgrim Night Wolf makes ready to leave the Viking town of Dubh-linn for the long journey back to his home in Norway. But the gods have other plans, and Thorgrim and his men wash up in the small Viking longphort of Vík-ló. Thinking themselves among friends, they soon learn that the opposite is true - that Grimarr Giant, the Lord of Vík-ló, has reason to want Thorgrim and his son, Harald, dead.

Driven ashore on the coast of Ireland, their longships nearly wrecked by the gods who seem unwilling to let them leave, Thorgrim Night Wolf and his band of Northmen once again face a fight for their survival. Helpless without their ships, they must find some refuge in that hostile country and begin the laborious work of making the vessels seaworthy again. But for all the shipbuilding skills that Thorgrim and the others possess, there is one thing they cannot do - weave cloth to replace the sails shredded in the gale that drove them ashore.

April 12, 1861. With one jerk of a lanyard, one shell arching into the sky, years of tension exploded into civil war. And for those men who did not know in which direction their loyalty called them, it was a time for decisions. Such a one was Lieutenant Samuel Bowater, an officer of the United States Navy, a native of Charleston, South Carolina. Hard pressed to abandon the oath he swore to the United States, but unable to fight against his home state, Bowater accepts a commission in the nascent Confederate navy.

Shortly after Thomas Marlowe's arrival in Williamsburg, Virginia, all in that newfound capital city are speaking his name. With the bounty from his years as a pirate—a life he intends to renounce and keep forever secret—he purchases a fine plantation from a striking young widow, and soon after kills the favorite son of one of Virginia's most powerful clans while defending her honor. But it is a daring feat of remarkable cunning that truly sets local tongues wagging: a stunning move that wins Marlowe command of Plymouth Prize, the colony's decrepit guardship.

In a blind rage, King James, ex-slave and now Marlowe's comrade in arms, slaughters the crew of a slave ship and makes himself the most wanted man in Virginia. The governor gives Marlowe a choice: Hunt James down and bring him back to hang or lose everything Marlowe has built for himself and his wife, Elizabeth. Marlowe sets out in pursuit of the ex-slave turned pirate, struggling to maintain control over his crew—rough privateers who care only for plunder—and following James's trail of destruction.