Hello and welcome to this week's Tuesday Teaser. The place where we take a sneaky peek at a book that has caught my eye.
This week we are looking at The Wrecking Storm by Michael Ward.
Mike Ward is an English creator of historical fiction. Born in Liverpool, he was a BBC journalist and journalism academic before turning to non-factual writing.
His debut novel, The Rags of Time, was located in London in 1639 and is the first book in his Thomas Tallant series. The Wrecking Storm is the second in this series.
The Blurb
London. 1641.
The poisonous dispute pushing King Charles and Parliament towards Civil War is reaching the point of no return.
Law and order in the city are collapsing as Puritan radicals demand more concessions from the King. Bishops and lords are attacked in the streets as the Apprentice Boys run amok. Criminal gangs use the disorder to mask their activities while the people of London lock their doors and pray for deliverance.
No one is immune from the contagion. Two Jesuit priests are discovered in hiding and brutally executed – and soon the family of spice merchant Thomas Tallant is drawn into the spiral of violence. Tallant’s home is ransacked, his warehouse raided and his sister seized by kidnappers.
Thomas struggles to discover who is responsible, aided by the enigmatic Elizabeth Seymour, a devotee of science, maths and tobacco in equal measure. Together they enter a murky world of court politics, street violence, secret codes and poisoned letters, and confront a vicious gang leader who will stop at nothing to satisfy his greed.
Can Elizabeth use her skills to unpick the mass of contradictory evidence before the Tallant's are ruined – both as a business and a family?
And as the fight for London between King and Parliament hurtles to its dramatic conclusion, can the Tallant's survive the personal and political maelstrom?
The Beginning
Prologue
The River Thames - May 9th 1641
A chill wind blew upriver as the dawn struggled into life. London was waking to a dank, grey day, the overnight rain still pulsing fitfully, peppering the water’s surface.
A wherry edged from its landing stage on the northern bank of the Thames. As the boat cleared the dock, small waves slapped against its side, making the lantern in its prow bob up and down, a solitary movement on the black, silent expanse of water.
Francis Cavendish shuddered and gathered his thin cloak around his shoulders.
Sitting at the back of the wherry, he was chilled to the marrow, but didn’t care. He had finally escaped from the suffocating hole in the wall that had been his hiding place for three weeks.
He studied the broad-shouldered man on his right sharing his seat. Francis did not know his name, where he came from or who he was. And yet he was trusting this swarthy stranger with his life.
Instead of fear, he experienced an intense elation. Two days ago he was within inches of discovery, certain torture and a bloody death, only to escape! In that moment, he knew the Lord still had work for him.
His throat tightened and nausea returned at the memory of that priest hole – the shouts on the stairwell, the tramp of boots and then hammering on the wall outside his hiding place. Voices yelling, wood splintering, excited shouts of discovery turning to curses and oaths, and then silence. Francis, a cloth rammed into his mouth to stifle the sobs of panic convulsing his body, straining his every fibre to be still, and all the time the murmur of voices inches from him, disappointed, bitter. And, finally, the desultory clatter as his armed pursuers walked away. He had escaped discovery by the thickness of an oak panel. His ‘hide within a hide’ had deceived his pursuers as intended. It was a miracle.
Francis was transferred that night to an old warehouse by the river, and there he remained until his rescuers arrived in the early hours of this morning. Now he was afloat, heading to safety.
I love an exciting beginning in a book and this certainly delivers on that. Somehow, I don't think he is that safe yet!
