Risultati di "James Nelson" in Tutte le categorie

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.

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.  

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.

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.

The year 1777 is bleak indeed for the cause of American Independence, with the British army twice defeating Washington and taking the capital city of Philadelphia and the Royal Navy sweeping aside the defenses of the Delaware Bay. For Captain Isaac Biddlecomb and the men of the half-built frigate Falmouth, things are direr still. After managing to slip through a British blockade, they find themselves trapped in a desolate harbour on the New Jersey coast and menaced not by the British but by the outlaw bands that terrorise the countryside and see Falmouth as a potentially valuable prize.

1777. Captain Isaac Biddlecomb, together with his wife and child, is bound for Philadelphia aboard the brig Charlemagne. His orders are to take command of the newly built frigate Falmouth and take her out to sea before she is taken by General Richard Howe's invading army. Unknown to Biddlecomb, the entire British fleet stands between him and the new nation's capital. Forced to run his beloved brig aground, Biddlecomb comes face to face with his mortal enemy, Lieutenant John Smeaton.

1776. A fleet of British transport ships are looming off Staten Island, while the remnants of General George Washington's army huddle behind hastily constructed fortifications on Brooklyn Heights. There, Washington is preparing for the final destruction of the Continental army. Captain Isaac Biddlecomb receives a monumental order – to transport to France the most dangerous secret weapon in the country's arsenal: scientist and philosopher Benjamin Franklin. Biddlecomb's seemingly simple mission to deliver Franklin to the court of Louis XVI is just the first volley in a grand scheme.

1776: A decade of simmering tensions is finally coming to the boil. Determined to cast off the chains of British tyranny, the rebel government of Philadelphia has authorised the creation of the United States Navy – a brazen act of American aggression against the greatest maritime power in the world. Captain Isaac Biddlecomb sets sail in the Charlemagne on a daring mission to raid the British store of arms on New Providence Island in the Bahamas. Yet his greatest enemy is an undisciplined crew on the brink of mutiny.

1775: General George Washington has discovered his store of gunpowder has dwindled to next to nothing. Captain Isaac Biddlecomb is despatched to Bermuda to capture the British gunpowder known to be there. But the plan is a trap, hatched by a traitor among the Patriots. Washington's aide-de-camp Major Edward Fitzgerald is tasked with hunting the traitor down; Biddlecomb meanwhile must work to free his ship and his men and capture the gunpowder so vital in the fight for freedom. Will Biddlecomb and Fitzgerald overcome their common enemy – the greatest military power on Earth?

1775. The American War of Independence is starting in earnest and Captain – and smuggler – Isaac Biddlecomb, pursued by HMS Rose, sacrifices his ship, the Judea, rather than surrender to the British. Forced to go on the run, and to disguise himself as a lowly ship's mate on a brig bound for Jamaica, he finds himself captured by the enemy. Can he use his wits to survive a life of servitude under the deranged captain and sadistic crew of the HMS Icarus...?