Twin brothers Romulus and Remus Hutchinson grew up in a proud seafaring Liverpool family. So when war breaks out in Europe, they are both keen to sign up and do their part.
With their parents’ consent, both boys join up on their 16th birthday in October 1939 – Romulus as an RNVR sub-lieutenant on a Royal Navy destroyer and his brother as a deck hand with their father’s employer, John Holt & Company.
But with Romulus’s sadistic training officer seemingly intent on breaking the cadets’ spirits before their careers have even set sail, he struggles with the intense training.
There is no time for doubts, however, as the two brothers are quickly thrown into combat.
With Operation Dynamo around the corner, will the Hutchinson brothers both make it out alive…? Can they make their mark as their forefathers did before them?
Or will the bottomless deep claim yet more victims…?
We are delighted to announce that we have signed a new naval fiction novel set during the Second World War by Anthony Palmiotti.
Anthony Palmiotti
In Anthony’s words:
“When searching for subjects to write about, I look for little-known stories or actions within bigger events that emphasize the strength of character and the contributions made by ordinary people — the individuals that make a difference to the outcome. Invariably, it is the strength of character of the common man or woman that determines the outcome — that makes the difference between winning and losing. It could be a single heroic action or simply a steadfast stubbornness. It might be the will to go on when common sense says this is not a good idea. They are the unknown people who make the seemingly impossible, possible.
“Operation Pedestal was just one convoy in a war that saw hundreds of convoys. Malta was just one island in a sea of islands. What makes these two different is that they faced extreme odds and yet, through a steadfast perseverance, they beat the odds. The citizens of Malta and the common men on the convoys showed an uncommon resolve. They simply did not give up, even when giving up was the smart thing to do.
“My take on Malta during the summer of 1942 and Operation Pedestal is not a history but a novel. A novel allows the writer to get personal. It not only offers the facts, but, hopefully, a feel for what it’s like when ordinary people are asked to do extraordinary things.”
Vengeance at the Falklands is the fifth book in the Marcus Baxter Naval Thriller Series: action-packed historical adventures following former Royal Navy officer Marcus Baxter during the early 1900s and through the First World War.
Winter, 1914 Lieutenant Marcus Baxter is working in the supply department at HM Dockyard Devonport, when word arrives that the German East Asia Squadron has destroyed a British squadron at the battle of Coronel.
Baxter seizes an opportunity to impress the First Sea Lord, Jackie Fisher, during a snap inspection of the dockyard and secures an appointment to HMS Astute, a scout cruiser, which is being sent to join the squadron in the South Atlantic.
Surviving a storm in the mid-Atlantic, Astute has a run-in with a mysterious passenger liner sailing under the Stars and Stripes, and duels with a German light cruiser stalking the rich hunting grounds off the South American coast.
After an intense engagement, which sees the Astutefleeing along the coast to Montevideo for emergency repairs, Baxter once again encounters the suspicious liner. And this time he is determined not to let it get away.
Baxter risks everything to sneak aboard, and makes a shocking discovery. He needs to reach the safety of the Falklands before any intelligence falls into the wrong hands.
But with the enemy on his tail, the race along the South Atlantic won’t be an easy one…
Congratulations to Justin Fox, whose thrilling military adventure, Hell Run Tobruk, is out now!
Hell Run Tobruk is the third book in the Jack Pembroke Naval Thriller series: authentic British Navy war stories set during the Second World War.
December, 1941
Lieutenant Jack Pembroke is ordered to join a convoy and sail his small escort ship, HMSAS Gannet, from the Royal Navy base in Simon’s Town, South Africa, to Egypt.
With the Mediterranean all but closed to maritime traffic, and Rommel’s forces rampaging through North Africa, it seems unlikely that Gannet will survive the coming battles.
Jack arrives in Alexandria and is soon thrust into the action, escorting ships running supplies to the beleaguered town of Tobruk in Libya.
With the pressure building and ships around him being sunk by enemy bombers, Jack must deal with his own PTSD while leading his men to safety.
And with Tobruk surrounded, about to fall to Axis forces, Gannet is still trapped in the port…
Can Jack lead his men to safety? Will he make it out of Tobruk in one piece?
We are delighted to announce that we have signed Anthony Palmiotti’s American Merchant Marine series set during World War II.
Anthony Palmiotti
In Anthony’s words:
“Thank you, Sapere Books, for allowing my series to sail on.
“World War II was, perhaps, the most dangerous of all times for American Merchant Marines and British Merchant Navy seamen. Particularly in the early years, these civilian seamen had less chance of surviving the war than their comrades in the traditional military services. The series starts just as things are heating up when a young third mate, Patrick Welch, joins the tramp freighter Arrow. Throughout the first three books in the series, Patrick, and the crew of the Arrow, deal with Nazi U-boats, unforgiving weather and are part of a little-known rescue of Norwegian civilians from the far north.
“The goal of these novels is to highlight the contribution and sacrifice of these civilian warriors. And, of course, tell a good sea story!”
We are delighted to announce that we have signed a new series of historical naval adventures by Daniel Donato.
In Daniel’s words:
“The series follows English privateer Gideon Locke during Queen Anne’s War, which engulfed the colonies from Newfoundland all the way down to the Caribbean. With the Royal Navy tied up back home, it largely fell to privateers to protect the colonies.
“The story begins in 1707 with Gideon newly returned from a disastrous privateering venture, leaving him destitute and shunned by his fellow privateers. His fortunes change, however, when a charismatic captain recruits Gideon on his next venture. But by the time Gideon realizes that change in fortune was for the worse, it’s too late, and he finds himself caught up in a plot to kidnap the son of a prominent English Governor and deliver him to the French.
“As the series progresses, we’ll see Gideon fight to redeem himself, earn a reputation and climb in rank until he’s ultimately in command of his own vessel.
“I was very fortunate to meet Amy Durant at the Historical Novel Society Conference in Texas last year, and even more fortunate that she was interested in this series. It’s a dream come true to be working with a publisher like Sapere Books who understand that there’s quite a hunger out there for historical action and adventure.”
Congratulations to David Field, whose enthralling naval adventure, Westward To Freedom, is out now!
Westward To Freedom is the third Tudor/Renaissance novel in The New World Nautical Saga Series – historical novels set during the reign of Elizabeth I and beyond.
1607
The English Separatists seek only the right to be allowed to worship in their own way in their humble North Nottinghamshire village, but their beliefs are anathema to King James.
When they are given cause to believe that their clandestine meetings have come to the notice of the authorities they move to Gainsborough with a view to taking ship to the Low Countries.
After being betrayed three times they eventually make it to the comparative safety of Holland, but even there they are in danger of persecution.
So in one final throw of the dice they sign up to be members of a ‘settler’ community financed by merchant adventurers.
But to start their new life they must survive the perilous crossing on The Mayflower.
And the wilderness waiting for them on the other side is not quite what they had hoped for.
Will they succumb to the elements, disease or starvation?
Or will fortune shine on this assembly of pilgrims and finally allow them a sanctuary of their own creation?
Congratulations to Tim Chant, whose page-turning nautical adventure, The War for Tripoli, is out now! The War for Tripoli is the third book in the Marcus Baxter Naval Thrillers series.
1911
Itinerant seaman Marcus Baxter has landed in Constantinople. Short of funds and lacking allegiance to any government, he is keen to sell his services to the highest bidder.
With Italy intent on capturing the Ottoman provinces of Tripolitania and Cyrenaica, it seems that war is on the horizon and fighting men will soon be in demand.
As a battle-hardened sailor, it isn’t long before Baxter is approached by Hiram Bogue, an American sea captain in league with the Committee of Union and Progress — an Ottoman revolutionary organisation.
Enticed by the amount of money on offer, Baxter agrees to train new recruits aboard the Residye, a proposed blockade runner, as well as overseeing the refit of the vessel.
With the growing threat of attack by the Italian navy, the assignment grows ever more dangerous.
And when war finally erupts, Baxter is forced to propel his inexperienced crew and ill-equipped vessel into action.
But with such a formidable enemy, will he survive long enough to claim his earnings…?
Justin Fox is the author of the Jack Pembroke Naval Thriller series: authentic British Navy war stories set during the Second World War.
I grew up around boats and the sea has always been an important part of my life and my writing. Our family spent holidays in an old house in Simon’s Town, the former Royal Navy base in South Africa, and from an early age I knocked about in anything that floats: rowing boats, sailing dinghies, windsurfers and yachts. My reading as a boy was also nautically orientated, particularly naval yarns by the likes of Douglas Reeman, Patrick O’Brian, Nicholas Monsarrat and CS Forester.
Midshipman Justin Fox, aged 17.
After leaving school, my two years of national service in the South African Defence Force were spent in the navy, based in Simon’s Town. During that period, I had six months at sea on a replica medieval caravel sailing down the Atlantic from Portugal to South Africa in a re-enactment of the voyage of Bartholomew Dias in 1487. The first book I ever wrote (never published) was the story of that voyage.
When I later joined Getaway travel magazine as a photojournalist, I volunteered for any boating assignment: sailing a brigantine around the Seychelles, a felucca down the Nile, a pirogue to Timbuktu, island-hopping by catamaran around Madagascar, taking the mail ship to St Helena Island and sailing a dhow up the Kenyan coast (which provided material for my Somali pirate novel, Whoever Fears the Sea, published by Sapere).
My Jack Pembroke series is inspired by my love of history and the sea, but I also aimed to bring to the fore a theatre of World War II that is not well known and is little written about: the fighting off the South African coast that resulted in the loss of more than 150 Allied ships.
View from Justin’s flat in Cape Town.
I live in a flat in Cape Town and my desk overlooks the city’s anchorage. Watching the ships come and go each day, I often think of the war years when thousands of vessels were routed around the Cape. When a convoy was in town, Table Bay would be crammed with more than fifty ships, all of them needing protection. In place of today’s yachts and pleasure craft puttering jauntily out of the V&A Waterfront, minesweepers and anti-submarine vessels would make their daily round of the bay.
During the war, the Cape of Good Hope became a vital strategic point on the sea route around the continent and was particularly important during the North African campaign. Once Italy entered the war in 1940, the Mediterranean became too dangerous for Allied convoys, and most were diverted around the Cape. Much preparation was needed before Nazi warships made their way to Africa’s southern tip. The Royal Navy base in Simon’s Town had to be expanded and reinforced, and a fledgling South African Navy created almost from scratch.
First came the German surface raiders, then the U-boats. They attacked within sight of the coast and near the entrance to the harbours of Cape Town and Durban. There are incredible stories of heroism and cloak-and-dagger raids around our coast. For instance, one U-boat slipped into Table Bay and its captain allowed his crew on deck to see the bright lights of Sea Point (of course, all German cities were blacked out at the time). There are many apocryphal stories that surfaced in the folklore of coastal towns, such as German sailors coming ashore and playing soccer with Nazi-sympathising locals, spies passing on information about Allied ship movements and farmers replenishing U-boats around Cape Agulhas.
Cape Town minesweepers during WWII.
Like many South African children of my generation, I had a fascination with World War II. I built model ships and aeroplanes, played war games in our suburban garden and devoured books about the great campaigns. But I was always mildly disappointed that most of the stories were about the North, and that South Africa seldom featured in the accounts.
During my time in the navy, I began to learn a little bit about the battles fought in local waters and became interested in the exploits of South Africa’s ‘little ships’. If the actions of raiders, U-boats and convoys were soon forgotten by the general public after the war, the exploits of minesweepers and anti-submarine vessels hardly received mention at all. Yet the industrious, daily patrols by these ships kept South African ports open and took the fight to the U-boat wolf packs. It is that story that forms the backdrop to the first two Jack Pembroke adventure novels, The Cape Raider and The Wolf Hunt.
Congratulations to Justin Fox, whose thrilling wartime adventure, The Wolf Hunt, is out now! The Wolf Hunt is the second book in the Jack Pembroke Naval Thriller series.
1941
Lieutenant Jack Pembroke has found a new home and new love at the Cape, but it will all hang in the balance with the arrival of the enemy in South African waters.
With the Mediterranean all but closed to maritime traffic, and Rommel’s forces rampaging through North Africa, this sea route is vital to supplying the Allied forces in Egypt.
But German U-boats have been sent by Admiral Donitz from their bases on the west coast of France to cripple the convoy route.
Jack is put in command of a small anti-submarine flotilla in the Royal Navy base of Simon’s Town, South Africa.
But he has very little time to train his officers and men, and prepare his ships, for the arrival of the Nazi wolf packs.
With the Cape under attack, Jack has to escort a vital convoy from Cape Town to Durban.
But with the enemy U-boats lying in wait in the storm-ravaged waters, he’ll be luck to make it out alive…
Congratulations to Tim Chant, whose exhilarating nautical action novel, Mutiny on the Potemkin, is published today!
Mutiny on the Potemkin is the second book in the Marcus Baxter naval thriller series: action-packed, authentic historical adventures following former Royal Navy officer Marcus Baxter during the early 1900s.
Marcus Baxter may have survived one naval battle, but his troubles are far from over.
Despite serving with the Russian navy aboard the Yaroslovich, he is arrested by the Tsarist secret police for conspiracy and sent west on the Trans-Siberian railway to St. Petersburg. Competing factions within the secret police disrupt his journey and he finds himself in Odessa.
Odessa, though, is in the grip of revolutionary riots and Baxter finds himself trapped in the city as violence and anarchy spreads.
The crew of the Potemkin has mutinied, killing most of the officers and bringing the battleship into port.
When Baxter realises a friend is trapped in the carnage, he is determined to get onboard the battleship.
Are you working on a new series set in the Age of Sail? Have you written a naval thriller set during the World Wars? Are you passionate about seafaring stories? Sapere Books wants to hear from you!
We are actively looking to acquire nautical fiction from both debut and established authors. We are particularly interested in historical naval fiction, nautical thrillers, and books in a series.
If you are an author who owns the rights to a previously published naval series, or a writer working on a new nautical novel, please get in touch and tell us about it!
Email our Editorial Director, Amy Durant, directly with some information about your nautical writing and a synopsis of your naval novel and we will get back to you as soon as possible.
