Book Spotlight and Excerpt: Ships of War — Murky Waters by Bradley John

 

1791 — England's cannon remain ever silent as her shipping is ruthlessly preyed upon, a detestable state of affairs, though soon to be remedied...

England is ill prepared, Europe is in turmoil and the French Revolution is readying to sweep across the continent. A tedious uneasy peace poises on a knife's edge. Brittana rules the waves, yet as more and more ships mysteriously vanish, it is rightly thought an act of war. However, England needs more time, or all could be lost.

With war looming, Lieutenant Hayden Reginald Cooper, Royal Navy, awaits in Portsmouth braving a bitter cold winter with half pay, beached in a constant state of penury. With little prospects, little "interest" and no chance of promotion or advancement, he is the perfect choice for the Admiralty: unknown, unimportant and wholly dispensable.

As so it begins, a turbulent action-packed naval adventure within the murky waters preceding war, the French piracy soon to discover the grit of a lowly Lieutenant, one who has very little to lose…

 

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EXCERPT

Holt beheld the incoming broadside standing tall upon the quarterdeck. In the first moments he regarded the undeniable sight of smoke instantly puffing from the ships yonder, silently though, for the sound had not yet fully travelled. He was thereafter borne of a singular mind, assuredly a mind to which all familiarity with the outside world now fell lost. It certified within him a suffering never before deemed imaginable. It was a hostility he would soon not forget, such was his boyhood innocence. Noted instantly were a great many astonishing sounds, all racing to rupture the virtue of his lobes, an overall resonance seemingly strange and without a doubt wholly outlandish. Having never been on the receiving end of such a broadside, it openly gave him pause. The whistling tunes aloft seared the sky and oh how they chanced to inflict the gravest of thoughts, the wind of the enemy's shots whizzing as they trespassed upon the ship. The scene descended upon him most abruptly, the horrendous tearing of sails overhead, the ripping of canvas crying aloud as the weight of spars sought to claw them down. Splinters upon bulwark and gunwale haphazardly flew, mimicking a violent winter's storm, more furious than even a hundred wood choppers madly serving their axes. All about the planking, indeed immersed within the depths of the structure, Agamemnon shuddered and trembled, the penance of each shot hurried from the ship. The roaring of cannon reverberated within his chest, almost as if he were in fact somehow the barrel itself, the hum of each shot grabbing wickedly at his heart. The deafening turmoil within sought to impose a hideous most disturbed feeling and immediately he felt inclined to be uncontrollably ill, the vile gurgling about his abdomen finally seeping the sanctity of his throat.

 

 Bradley John Tatnell (aka "Bradley John") is an Australian novelist whose ancestry can be traced back to the Norman Conquest in England. His forbears lived mostly in Kent, Hertfordshire and the Isle of Thanet. Some were mariners and some were even of the aristocracy. His direct ancestors arrived in Australia soon after its colonisation in the late 1700's, most of which were proud country folk. James Squire, a notable character in history, who arrived on the first fleet in 1788, was his (sixth) great grandfather.

Bradley John graduated from the Church of England Grammar School at age 16 and the Queensland University of Technology at age 19. His early life was spent mainly in the arena of law.

 

Bradley John has a love of all things ancient and historical, including golf, to which he plays with ye old hickory shafted clubs including the original heads from pre-1935. He also studies the ancient art of Korean sword, having attained master level. His love of language, in all its forms, now extends to the pursuit of conquering Hangul, the language of the Korean people.

Bradley John has been privately writing novels since 2003. "Ships of War — Murky Waters", his first publication, births a series of naval adventure fiction intended to span the length of the French Revolutionary Wars. This of course is the much loved genre which includes the thundering Hornblower series by C.S. Forester, the Aubrey-Maturin series by Patrick O'Brian and the popular "Master and Commander" blockbuster by Peter Weir. Owing to Bradley John's English heritage, no guesses are needed to determine which side the book's heroes will sail upon…

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