I am very much looking forward to Alaric Bond’s latest, Torrid Zone, due out in April or May. He recently posted about it on his blog. Background to a Book I’ve now finished the second draft of The Torrid Zone, … Continue reading
Category Archives: Seastories
There was a very nice post this morning on the Working Harbor Committee blog about my novel “Hell Around the Horn.” My thanks to the editor, Mai Armstrong. Have you read Rick Spilman’s novel Hell Around The Horn? It’s a thriller … Continue reading
A review by Joe Follansbee of Andrew D. Thaler’s Fleet: The Complete Collection, a fascinating, post-apocalyptic tale of survival in a nautical world. Review: ‘Fleet’ revives sci-fi’s nautical tradition, By Joe Follansbee Science fiction’s nautical tradition goes back to the genre’s origins. In … Continue reading
Last June, we reviewed Joan Druett’s Judas Island, the first book her Promise of Gold Series. Here is an excerpt from a recent review by Cindy Vallar from her wonderful Pirates and Privateers blog. Captain Jahaziel “Jake” Dexter believes a pirate’s … Continue reading
When I started this blog, I had intended it to be, at least in part, a book blog of works about ships and the sea. Of late, however, I have been completely negligent in posting reviews. I will attempt to … Continue reading
Today is the 123rd anniversary of Zora Neale Hurston‘s birthday. She is being honored by Google with a graphic on the main search page. Hurston is considered to be one of the pre-eminent African-America writers of the 20th century. She … Continue reading
Fiona Shaw, in an excerpt from a new staged reading of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s 1798 poem “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” This scene features the passage that birthed the expression “albatross around your neck.” The show, directed by Phyllida … Continue reading
A new review from Historic Naval Fiction: Alaric Bond‘s new novel, Turn A Blind Eye, moves away from his ‘Fighting Sail’ series and the Royal Navy to the world of smuggling on the South Coast of England. It follows Commander Griffin … Continue reading
What is history? What is fiction? These seem to be straightforward questions. The conventional answer would be that history is what happened and fiction are the stories that we make up. In writing my recent novel I was faced with … Continue reading
My novel Hell around the Horn is set on a British windjammer on a voyage around Cape Horn in the particularly brutal winter of 1905. I wanted to write the novel, in part, because the windjammers have been largely forgotten … Continue reading
From Tuesday, September 17 through Saturday, September 21st, we will participating in “Weigh Anchor,” a nautical blog hop organized by the wonderful Helen Hollick. She has brought together twenty three writers of nautical fiction and non-fiction to post about their … Continue reading
To celebrate the launch of Margaret Muir’s Admiralty Orders – Book 3 in her Oliver Quintrell series, the first book of the series, Floating Gold is free on Amazon for the next three days. In our review, we called Floating … Continue reading
Joan Druett’s The Elephant Voyage is free today and tomorrow, August 7 -8, on Kindle. The Elephant Voyage is a fascinating historical account of a crew who find themselves castaway on a desolate, wind-swept sub-Antarctic island, while on an ill-fated voyage … Continue reading
V.E. Ulett’s novel, Captain Blackwell’s Prize begins in battle. As the British board a larger Spanish ship, they discover that the boy wielding a sword next to the Spanish captain is indeed a woman. The novel develops into an unexpected … Continue reading
Alaric Bond, in his latest novel, Turn A Blind Eye, vividly captures the complex and often contradictory world of a seaside village caught between loyalty, prosperity, treachery and murder. It is 1801, on the coast of Sussex. England is at war … Continue reading
Herman Melville was born on this day, August 1, in 1819, in a boarding house on the site of 6 Pearl Street, in the Financial District of lower Manhattan in New York City. I invite you to join me in … Continue reading
Joan Druett’s The Elephant Voyage is a fascinating historical account of sailors who find themselves castaway on a desolate, wind-swept sub-Antarctic island, while on an ill-fated voyage to hunt elephant seals in the late 19th century. Their rescue and at least partial redemption also … Continue reading
Joan Druett’s Judas Island, the first book of her Promise of Gold trilogy, is a delightful mix of nautical adventure, romance and droll comedy. In the novel, Harriet Gray, an eighteen year old British actress, finds herself abandoned on the deck … Continue reading
McBook Press‘ wonderful publication Quarterdeck, has a fascinating interview with Joan Druett in their June 2013 edition. We are reposting it here with permission. Award-winning author Joan Druett sailed back into nautical fiction in 2005 with the launch of A … Continue reading
Joan Druett’s A Love of Adventure is free today and tomorrow as an Amazon Kindle edition. From our review, last August: Many of the classics of nautical literature are stories of young men who set off to sea, often compelled, in … Continue reading