FICTION / Historical / Civil War Era

Set in Havana in 1863 during the American Civil War, the Spanish colonial city was alive with intrigue and war-related espionage. The protagonist—a young American ship captain by the name of Everett Townsend—is pulled into the war, not as a Naval Academy midshipman, as he had once hoped, but as the captain of a Havana-based blockade-running schooner. Even as Townsend gets entangled in the war effort, he also finds himself being pulled into the dangerous investigation of a murdered English diplomat, which threatens his own life.

At the Edge of Honor, which was awarded the 2003 Patrick D. Smith Literary Award for Best Historical Novel of Florida, is set in 1863 Civil War Florida and the British Bahamas during the desperate coastal conflict between the U.S. Navy and Confederate blockade-runners. Peter Wake, a veteran Massachusetts lumber schooner captain now turned into a volunteer Union naval officer, is given command of a small sailing gunboat with orders to bring the war to the enemy, wherever they may hide. Wake endeavors to do just that, becoming the most successful small boat blockade skipper in the East Gulf Blockade Squadron. But along the way, he learns about the perils and tragedies of naval command, international politics in the British Bahamas, and egos among senior officers, and falls for the daughter of an enemy Rebel runner in Key West. Can he accomplish his mission, get the girl of his dreams,...