Sloop of War - Alexander Kent

The appearance of a new Richard Bolitho novel is always an event. When the first, To Glory We Steer, appeared four years ago, Bolitho was immediately hailed as the new Hornblower -although reviewers were quick to recognise that Bolitho stood as a memorable character in his own right. Alexander Kent, with his succeeding novels, has clearly established himself as an author who has no equal today in writing stirring and authentic stories of the eighteenth-century Navy.

For the young Richard Bolitho the spring of 1778 marked a complete transformation for himself and his future. It was the year in which the American War of Independence changed to an all-out struggle for freedom from British rule-and the year when Bolitho took command of the Sparrow, a small, fast and well-armed sloop of war.

As the pace of war increased, the Sparrow was called from one crisis to another-and when the great fleets of Britain and France converged on the Chesapeake, Bolitho had to throw aside the early dreams of his first command to find maturity in a sea battle that might decide the fate of a whole continent.