Showing titles in Sea Adventures

H.M.S. Surprise, the third in O'Brian's acclaimed Aubrey-Maturin series, follows the variable fortunes of Captain Jack Aubrey's career in Nelson's navy, as he attempts to hold his ground against admirals, colleagues, and the enemy, and accepts a commission to convey a British ambassador to the East Indies. The voyage leads him and his friend Stephen Maturin to the strange sights and smells of the Indian subcontinent, and through the archipelago of Spice Islands where the French have a near-overwhelming local superiority.

The White Valley in the far west of Cornwall cuts deeply through bluebell woods down to the sea. The house above the beach has lain neglected since the war. It comes with a reputation, which is why Mila and her mother, Magda, acquire it so cheaply in the summer of 1954. Magda plans to restore the house. Mila's dreams of creating a safe haven for herself and her little girl. The White Valley comes with a long, eventful history, laced with tall tales. Locals say that a white hare may be seen running through the woods there; to some, she's an ill omen, to others a blessing.

1896: Four Englishmen flee for their lives across the merciless Kalahari Desert, carrying a stolen fortune in raw diamonds, and hunted by a fierce African tribe. The thieves manage to reach the waiting HMS Rove - only to die with their pursuers in a vicious storm that buries them all under tons of sand.... The present day: Juan Cabrillo and the crew of the covert combat ship Oregon have barely escaped a mission on the Congo River when they intercept a mayday from a defenceless boat under fire off the African coast.

In this new adventure, Hornblower is overjoyed to discover his next task is to serve aboard the mighty HMS Renown. After witnessing some unsettling scenes however, he soon finds himself struggling to serve under the captain, James Sawyer, whose unsound mind leads him to treat his crew with extreme suspicion and contempt.

When Elisabeth Quemener dies she leaves a small parcel with the instructions that it must only be opened by Astrid Oake. The trouble is, no one knows who Astrid Oake is… Elisabeth’s family turn to Touissants detective agency for help but, when Mila Shepherd and Carter Jackson try to track Astrid down, their frustration soon mounts. Their only clue is a photo of two young women holding the hands of a tiny child. The women are smiling but Mila is haunted by the sadness in their eyes. Is this Astrid and Elisabeth and if so, who is the child?

Bombay, 1909. Genevieve Masefield and George Dillman make a living as detectives aboard the early twentieth century's most extravagant ocean liners. From the members of first class in all their finery, to the card cheats and pickpockets plying their trade, they've experienced more than their share of humanity. For their latest voyage, the Salsette boasts a pair of travellers who feign ignorance of each other but there is clearly no love lost between them. Then there’s an elderly man whose powers of deduction may be based on more earthly techniques than the mystical energy he claims to possess.

A contemporary air-sea heavyweight fight...the like we haven't seen since the Pacific War. A routine US Navy freedom-of-navigation patrol in the South China sea turns deadly when it encounters a covert - and unauthorized - Chinese plot to lay claim to waters of the South China Sea. Misunderstanding, miscalculation, and fear lead to both sides mobilizing, with the United States moving west across the Pacific to meet and engage the People's Liberation Army (Navy) who waits with modern weaponry and determined purpose.

Rachel's plans to spend Christmas with her fiancé are in tatters after he is called to Italy at short notice. Rather than spend Christmas with her parents, Rachel decides to take a last-minute Canary Island cruise. Sarah, cruise ship nurse and Rachel's best friend, is only too pleased to have her along, as Sarah's parents are taking their first cruise. With her mother keen for her to settle down, she is glad of the moral support.

The 80-foot Megalodon that caused so much terror is dead, but the bloodbath has only just begun. The Omega Fury has been sunk. Giant predators, awakened by the Gota ja’ Titan meteor, have taken over the mid-tlantic. Tensions increase as a titanic 120-foot megalodon is discovered near the Florida coast. With megalodon attacks on the rise, the military is forced to establish a base of operations on the island of Cielo Nublado.

For four novels, Clive Cussler has charted the exploits of the Oregon, a clandestine spy ship completely dilapidated on the outside, but on the inside packed with sophisticated weaponry and intelligence-gathering equipment. Captained by the rakish, one-legged Juan Cabrillo and manned by a crew of former military and spy personnel, it is a private enterprise, available for any government agency that can afford it - and now Cussler sends the Oregon on its most extraordinary mission yet.

John Pearce discovers that Madrid plans to desert the British-led coalition and join the enemy. In company with Lord Langholm, he has taken a Spanish treasure ship but is forced into a deep bay overlooked by Spaniards who have a cannon aimed at the entrance. Pearce must take the lead and find a way to get Langholm's frigate and the damaged Santa Leocadia through the bottleneck. His orders take him via Gibraltar, then to Admiral Jervis to warn of Spanish duplicity.

The year is 1792 - the start of the French Revolutionary Wars. A shadow hangs over John Thomas Fury in this his first voyage as a midshipman aboard the 32-gun frigate Amazon. Fury is already seen as a pariah by his fellow sailors. Ten years earlier his father, a brig commander in the Service, became mentally unbalanced and violent and his ships crew mutinied and went over to the French.

Young Robinson Crusoe has a burning ambition to be a sailor. Paying no attention to his parent's warnings he runs away to sea to embark on an extraordinary series of adventures: struggles with Barbary pirates, a shipwreck and the extraordinary meeting with Man Friday. Roy Marsden plays the older Robinson Crusoe looking back on a life of recklessness, daring and adventure - and the survival of 28 years, two months and 19 days on a desert island.

A Spanish colonial governor and his family are pursued through the Caribbean by a pair of mysterious ships from the Dutch island of St. Eustatius. The British frigate Medina rescues the governor from his hurricane-wrecked ship, leading Captain Edward Carlisle and his first lieutenant George Holbrooke into a web of intrigue and half-truths. Are the Dutchmen operating under a letter of marque, or are they pirates, and why are they hunting the Spaniard? Only the diplomatic skills of Carlisle’s aristocratic wife, Lady Chiara, can solve the puzzle.

Following a daring rescue, Jack Aubrey accepts a new command and a new commission to a far-flung destination. Ahead of him and his crew are the new sights and smells of the Indian subcontinent, and the terrifying hazards of an archipelago of islands in the East Indies, where their French enemies have near overwhelming superiority.

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.

Dark, magical and unsettling, Folk is a debut of breathtaking imagination which introduces the remote, unforgiving island of Neverness and its singular inhabitants. Take a torch, the last to be lit, and follow the jostle of fat, spitting lights as the men and women of Neverness spread out along the gorse edge. Every year they gather while the girls shoot their arrows and the boys hunt them out. The air is riddled with spiteful shadows - the wounds and fears and furies of a village year.

In 1829, the Portuguese brig Dourado sank off the coast of Indonesia, losing its cargo of priceless treasures from the Holy Land. One of these lost relics holds the key to an ancient mystery. But someone does not want this treasure to come to light. When her father is murdered while searching for the Dourado, Kaylin Maxwell hires treasure hunter and former Navy Seal Dane Maddock and his partner Uriah "Bones" Bonebrake, to locate the wreckage and recover a lost Biblical artifact.

Widely regarded as the most engaging historical novels ever written, the 21 books in Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin series have garnered millions of fans since the publication of the first volume over 50 years ago. Included here are BBC radio adaptations of the first seven thrilling stories.

Evelyn is a witch with a perfect storm of bad impulses: terrible taste in bed partners, sticky fingers, and a lust for danger. After she steals from her vampire ex and falls through a portal to another realm, she's fished out of the waters by a band of seafarers and their telekinetic captain. She's immediately given a choice - join their group or die. Bowen and his crew are bound by vow to patrol through Threshold, the magical sea between realms, keeping the portals to other worlds safe. When he rescues Evelyn, he doesn't expect to be attracted to the unflappable pickpocket.