I’d always intended to continue the Carlisle & Holbrooke Naval Adventures through the period of peace after the Seven Years war and then into the American War of Independence. I’m delighted to tell you that the first post-war novel is now available.

Red Gold is the seventeenth book in the series, and it takes Edward and Chiara Carlisle to the Mediterranean. When Edward Carlisle’s ship Dartmouth was lost on the shoals inside Cape Henry, he envisaged himself settling down to the life of a wealthy gentleman in Virginia. He wouldn’t seek another ship, and he wouldn’t pester their Lordships of the Admiralty; his seagoing days were over. However, it was not to be. He’d always known that there was some dark secret in Chiara’s past, and news from Sardinia made it imperative that it should no longer be ignored. It seemed such a simple task, nothing compared to the adventures that he’d experienced in the service of King George. Simple, until the full extent of the tortuous and deadly politics of the Angelini family are revealed.

Red Gold is published today in Kindle and Paperback formats, but it might take a few days to be available in your regional Amazon store.

Next Book: The eighteenth book in the Carlisle & Holbrooke series will bring George Holbrooke to the American colonies in 1765, the year of the Stamp Act. I expect to complete it in the early summer of 2026.

Audio Editions: David Lane Pusey is narrating the whole Carlisle & Holbrooke series, book-by-book, and producing them in audio format. He’s presently working on #16 Debatable Lands which will be available in the spring.

Fun Fact: If you’ve kept up with Carlisle & Holbrooke’s adventures so far, well done! You’ve read the equivalent in word-count of (approximately) three Lord of the Rings Trilogies or three readings of War and Peace!

The Carlisle & Holbrooke Naval Adventures are being published in audio format, one book at a time, and the first fourteen books are already out there and being enjoyed. Meanwhile, David Lane Pusey has completed his narration of the fourteenth book, Old Bahama Straits, and it’s now available from the usual places (Amazon, Audible, iTunes).

Britain’s response was fast and decisive when Spain joined the Seven Years War on the side of France. Guarded by a naval battle squadron, regiments drawn from Britain, the American colonies, and the garrisons of captured French islands were sent to lay siege to Havana. With Havana in British hands the Flota’s route to carry the wealth of the Indies to Spain would be threatened and the Spanish economy would collapse, knocking Spain out of the war in one stroke. That was the plan, but the British invasion force soon learned the gruesome reality of campaigning in the tropics.

In the early summer of 1762 Edward Carlisle in his fourth rate ship-of-the-line Dartmouth is sent to scout the route to Havana through the dangerous Old Bahama Straits, and to bring in the vital American reinforcement convoys. With his growing fluency in Spanish, and his contacts in Havana, he becomes embroiled in the difficult negotiations between a besieging army weakened by disease and a proud city on the brink of a humiliating defeat.

This is the fifteenth Carlisle and Holbrooke novel, continuing the journey through the Seven Years War and into the period of turbulent relations between Britain and her American colonies.

Red Gold

Look out for my next book to be published in a few weeks. Red Gold takes Edward Carlisle in search of the dark secrets of his wife’s past. I’ll post here when it’s published.

The Carlisle & Holbrooke Naval Adventures are being published in audio format, one book at a time, and the first thirteen books are already out there and being enjoyed. Meanwhile, David Lane Pusey has completed his narration of the fourteenth book, An Upright Man, and it’s now available from the usual places (Amazon, Audible, iTunes).

Even before Spain joined the war in early 1762, it was obvious that it wouldn’t have the strategic effect that the cousins, King Louis and King Charles, had hoped.  France needed a success to bring Britain to the negotiating table: nothing grand – Louis didn’t have the force for that – but something that would hurt the City of London in its pocket.

A raid on the Newfoundland fisheries would have an immediate financial impact. In normal times the dried cod provided an important dietary supplement to the population of the Atlantic basin and a steady stream of gold for the City’s coffers. The longer-lasting effect would come from the loss of the trained seamen that the fishery provided to the navy in time of war.

George Holbrooke’s frigate Argonaut is in the thick of the action as he is pitted against an old adversary.

SILKWORM!

Meanwhile, you might like to try Silkworm!This is a dramatized account of the Royal Navy’s operations in the Gulf Tanker War in 1988. It’s quite different to my Seven Years War books and neither Carlisle nor Holbrooke are involved. Silkworm! is a work of fiction, but its inspiration came from my own experiences as the Operations Officer of HMS Exeter, a guided missile destroyer, at the height of the tanker war.

Silkworm! is available from Amazon in Kindle, Kindle Unlimited and paperback.

Israeli and American attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities have prompted the Iranian government to threaten to close the Straits of Hormuz.

Well, they tried that before in the late 1980s and by sheer chance I published my latest novel Silkworm! just last month, and it deals with exactly those events. It’s a dramatised account of four days during which a british destroyer escorts tankers through the Straits, battling Iranian frigates, gunboats, shore-based missiles and mines. I felt qualified to write on this subject because I was the operations officer on just such a destoyer in the Spring of 1988, at the very height of the Gulf Tanker war. In my humble opinion Silkworm! is well worth reading to gain an impression of what western navies might be up against if Iran makes good on its threats. It’s a great novel too!

Silkworm! is available from Amazon in Kindle, Kindle Unlimited and Paperback.

I met Tony Noon at the Bowlines Maritime Literature Festival last weekend. Tony is publishing the best of the contemporary first-hand accounts from the age of sail, with essential annotations regarding the people, the places, and the historical background. I’m reading the first two of these: William Beatty’s ‘The Death of Horatio Nelson’ and William Robinson’s autobiography, ‘The World of Jack Nastyface,’ and I thoroughly recommend them both. Tony has done the heavy lifting in terms of research, and his notes save hours of delving into obscure references. They’re definitely worth reading and I’m looking forward to future volumes.

Both volumes are available from Amazon.

Have you heard about the maritime literary festival on Friday 6th June and Saturday 7th June? It’s in Exeter, Devon, England and it’s based at the historic Custom House and around Exeter’s Heritage Harbour.

There’s a packed agenda with a range of speakers including writers of fiction and non-fiction nautical history.

Follow the link below for more details.

I’m looking forward to seeing you there!

A Brooding Storm in the Arabian Gulf

I’m delighted to announce that my latest book, Silkworm! has been published. It isn’t about the 18^th century sailing navy but nevertheless the subject will be of interest to Carlisle & Holbrooke readers.

Silkworm! is a dramatized account of four days in the life of a fictional Royal Navy guided missile destroyer HMS Winchester during the Arabian Gulf Tanker War in 1988. That was the year that USS Samuel B. Roberts hit an Iranian mine, USS Vincennes shot down a commercial airliner and Operation Praying Mantis decimated the Iranian Navy in an afternoon.

I’m tempted to call it recent historical fiction, but to me it’s not history until there’s been a definite end point to the events, and that’s certainly not the case in the Arabian Gulf. When I look at the news from the Middle East it all sounds very familiar.

Silkworm! is heavily influenced by my own experiences as the operations officer of HMS Exeter during that period, but it’s definitely not autobiographical; it’s fiction and the ships and all the characters are invented.

In the late twentieth century the world economy was fuelled by oil, most coming from the Arabian Gulf. Giant seaborne tankers brought their cargoes through the Straits of Hormuz and into the oceanic trade routes. All the Gulf nations had an interest in keeping the oil flowing until Iran attempted to close the Straits in the nineteen-eighties. Iran laid mines and used frigates and armed speedboats to intercept the defenceless merchant ships. However, their most dangerous weapon was the Silkworm anti-ship missile, which they deployed to launch sites along their shore. Western nations responded by sending naval task groups to clear the mines and to escort the tankers through the Straits and out of the Gulf. A whole generation of Royal Navy sailors knew this as the Armilla Patrol.

Silkworm! is published today in Kindle and Paperback formats, but it might take a few days to be available in your regional Amazon store.

My next book will be the seventeenth in the Carlisle & Holbrooke series, set during the period of peace between the Seven Years War and the American War of Independence.

AUDIO EDITIONS

David Lane Pusey is narrating the whole Carlisle & Holbrooke series, book-by-book, and producing them in audio format. He’s presently working on #14 An Upright Man which will be available during the summer. I hope that the audio edition of Silkworm! will be published in the winter of 2025 or the spring of 2026.

The Carlisle & Holbrooke Naval Adventures are being published in audio format, one book at a time, and the first twelve books are already out there and being enjoyed. Meanwhile, David Lane Pusey has completed his narration of the thirteenth book, Cousins At Arms, and it’s now available from the usual places (Amazon, Audible, iTunes).

In 1761 the cousins King Louis of France and King Charles of Spain agreed in secret that Spain would enter the war against Britain by spring of the following year.

Edward Carlisle’s ship of the line Dartmouth is sent from Jamaica on what looks like a trivial mission intended to demonstrate friendship to Spain. However, in Havana he finds evidence of growing co-operation between the French and Spanish navies. While carrying the new governor of Guatemala to his domain he uncovers further plots, and his wife, Lady Chiara, uses her talents for languages and diplomacy to earn a seat at the ship’s councils of war.

Carlisle’s search for evidence of preparations for war takes him further west into the Gulf of Mexico, and to a final battle with a more familiar enemy.

Cousins At Arms offers the reader the thunder of guns and the clash of cutlasses, but at its heart it’s a thoughtful analysis of a nation’s ill-judged slide into war. This is the thirteenth Carlisle and Holbrooke novel. It continues the journey through the Seven Years War and into the period of turbulent relations between Britain and her American colonies, and ultimately to their bid for independence.

Look out for my next book to be published in a few weeks. Silkworm! is a dramatized account of the Royal Navy’s operations in the Gulf Tanker War in 1988. It’s quite different to my Seven Years War books and neither Carlisle nor Holbrooke are involved. I’ll post here when it’s published.

The spring edition of the Quarterdeck magazine is available online including, on page 29, a review of the latest Carlisle & Holbrooke Naval Adventure ‘Debatable Lands.’

You can download a copy of the Quarterdeck magazine here:

The Carlisle & Holbrooke Naval Adventures are being published in audio format, one book at a time, and the first eleven are already out there and being enjoyed. Meanwhile, David Lane Pusey has completed his narration of the twelfth Book, Treacherous Moon, and it’s now available from the usual places (Amazon, Audible, iTunes).

It is 1761. The British prime minister, William Pitt, is faced with the need to relieve French pressure on Hanover. He is against sending more British regiments to the continent and instead decides to draw the French army away from Germany by a repeat of the descents on the French coast that he tried three years earlier. The chosen target is Belle Isle, an important island that lies between the principal French Atlantic naval ports.

George Holbrooke’s ship Argonaut is sent ahead of Commodore Keppel’s squadron to gather intelligence on the French army’s movements by inserting an intelligence agent into Brittany. The agent is betrayed and wounded, and his contact in France must be rescued from the certainty of a traitor’s death. Holbrooke finds that the only way to accomplish his orders is to land on French soil himself, by moonlight, and seek out the agent’s contact. In a ruined cottage close to the sea, he makes a surprising discovery.

Treacherous Moon is the twelfth Carlisle and Holbrooke novel.  The series follows the two sea officers through the Seven Years War and into the period of turbulent relations between Britain and her American colonies prior to their bid for independence.

For those of you who prefer the printed word, Book 16 in the Carlisle & Holbrooke series, Debatable Lands, has been published in Kindle and Paperback formats, and is available from Amazon.