Showing results for "nigel" in Historical Fiction

Set in the middle of the 14th century, Sir Nigel is a swashbuckling story of the eponymous hero as he seeks his fortune and the hand of his lady-love in England and France in the early part of the Hundred Years War. It is full of high romance and chivalry, battles and brutality, humour and sheer rumbustiousness as the impoverished Nigel Loring and his lascivious attendant Aylward seek their fortunes.

1805. Napoleon’s plan to invade England failed, when his navy was defeated at Trafalgar and unable to take command of the English Channel. A ship from Nelson’s fleet carrying despatches spotted the French on the way to Brest and warned the Admiralty in London. But what might have happened if they had not been spotted? What if Admiral Villeneuve had taken control of the channel for long enough to allow the invasion fleet to sail? Would the military genius of Napoleon have triumphed and allowed him to conquer those damp islands off his coast?

Found guilty of stealing bread to feed his starving family, Michael McGuire is offered the “Queen’s Hard Bargain”, go to prison or join the army. He chooses the army and, after training in Dublin Castle, his life is changed forever as he is selected to join the Gordon Relief Expedition that is being sent south of Egypt to Khartoum, in the Sudan.

It is 1843 and to avoid the hangman’s noose two brothers flee from England. The first available ship out of Liverpool takes them to India where they join the army of the East India Company. Even before they have finished basic training they are marched north to the Punjab to face the most professional native army in India – the Sikhs. The British will now face their most severe test in the sub-continent and the brothers must stand in the firing lines to survive.

Michael McGuire has left the army, but as the First World War breaks out his country calls him again. At the start of the war the British expand their army rapidly, but there is a shortage of experienced officers and McGuire is needed. He is sent to Gallipoli in command of an Australian battalion that suffers badly in that debacle. He stays with them when their bloody road takes them to the mud and carnage of the western front.

It is 1860. The men and women who run from human bondage in the southern USA know only too well the inconceivable brutality that awaits them, if they are captured. Silas Carter draws on all his reserves of courage and puts his life on the line to escape the horror of slavery by riding the Underground Railroad. His courage is called on again as the Civil War breaks out in1861. He supports the Union and fights on the bloody battlefields to free his people from their savage enslavement on the Fields of Pain.

"Sir Nigel" is a historical novel set during the Hundred Years' War, by the British author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Written in 1906, it is a fore-runner to Doyle's earlier novel "The White Company", and describes the early life of that book's hero Sir Nigel Loring in the service of King Edward III at the start of the Hundred Years' War.

This tale weaves faith, horror, fantasy, and historical detail into the sodden marshes of Mirebridge, where seven women have died in seven weeks beneath the chapel altar—hands consumed by inner fire, eyes turned milky white—while the bells ring day and night untouched by mortal hands. Lord Stephern, a massive knight of a Crusader House bound by oath to the Church, and Sir Bessian, his keen-eyed and articulate companion, arrive at Father Berengar’s summons to conduct a deliberate investigation.

Set in the dark days of the Cold War in the 1960s, Salt's War is the first instalment of the truly moving and inspirational story charting Sam Salt's life as he struggles against overwhelming odds to achieve his lifelong ambition of becoming an officer in the Royal Navy. Sam Salt's life is turned completely upside down after he loses his father in an underwater submarine collision while he's out on patrol as captain of HMS Narwhal.

Si Conan Doyle est surtout passé à la postérité pour les enquêtes de Sherlock Holmes, c'est de son grand roman historique, « La Compagnie blanche » et de son préquel « Sir Nigel » qu'il était le plus fier. Il a conçu les 2 romans comme un dyptique pouvant se lire dans l'ordre voulu. On suit dans celui-ci les débuts de Sir Nigel, rejeton orphelin d'une noble famille ruinée, dont les terres ont été indûment accaparées par l'abbaye voisine. Déterminé à faire valoir ses droits, il se met au service du roi d'Angleterre pour aller faire campagne en France durant la guerre de 100 ans.