Cindy Vallar's Blog - Posts Tagged "nelson"

Victory by Julian Stockwin

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


After delivering dispatches and mail to blockading ships off Brest, HMS Teazer nears England. A lookout spots a French privateer and Commander Thomas Kydd pursues. Except the enemy is not alone. The privateer lures Teazer into a trap and a French frigate swoops in to capture the English prize. It’s a nail-biting chase that drives Kydd and his crew closer and closer to France, but they refuse to surrender and when it’s over, good men and a good vessel are gone.

With many men of higher rank clamoring for ships to command and with Napoleon’s invasion fleet ready to sail any day, Kydd’s prospects of securing a new vessel are slim to none. Yet each morning he visits the Admiralty in hopes of gaining his desire. Until one day, he receives a note telling him not to return. He faces a future on half pay with no idea of where to turn or what to do, but Nicholas Renzi studies the missive’s wording and a kernel of an idea blossoms. After he and Cecilia Kydd investigate, they launch a surprise befitting a post-captain.

The relationship between Nicholas and Cecilia grows strained in the aftermath of her brother’s promotion. Nicholas doesn’t want to declare his true feelings until he publishes his book and can comfortably support a wife and family. Cecilia is miffed that he refuses to take the plunge after all his hard work. When he does, he experiences a rude awakening regarding publishing and what will and will not sell. Like dominos falling, one crushed dream results in an awareness that another must also die. At the same time, Cecilia begins to wonder if maybe she must let go of her vision for the future as well before it’s too late to have the family and home she desires.

In this eleventh book in the series, Stockwin snares the reader’s attention from the start and the realm of emotions experienced mirrors the crests and troughs of waves during a storm. Other books depict the Battle of Trafalgar, but his use of a midshipman to witness Admiral Lord Nelson’s death resurrects the sorrow and devastation felt then in a way that makes these feelings just as palpable two centuries later.

Equally acute is the opening battle with the two French ships. There’s an immediacy that transports the reader to Teazer’s deck to experience the confusion, the wreckage, the smells, and the sounds that mark the hell that the Teazers undergo, as well as the grief Kydd senses as his beloved ship sinks. Just as profound is Renzi’s shock and dismay that his magnum opus may never be published and the realization he must grapple with as to what that means for his future with Cecilia.

“Victory” is defined as overcoming an enemy, of succeeding in an endeavor against great odds. This novel depicts victory on many levels, in different ways, and with profound passion. It also demonstrates the price that victory, or Victory, must pay in order to triumph over evil. This is a voyage not to be missed, one that will haunt the reader long after the last page is turned.


(This review was originally published at Pirates and Privateers: http://www.cindyvallar.com/Stockwin.h...)




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