Sir Mortimer Ferne raises his glass in a crowded London tavern, surrounded by captains and adventurers dreaming of Spanish gold. He is young, reckless, and possessed by a fierce code of honor that will not tolerate even a whisper of insult. When a duel erupts over a slur against his name, the bladework is quick and the stakes are nothing less than life itself. Beyond the tavern's smoke and candlelight, his ship waits in harbor, ready to carry him toward the Spanish Main where fortune favors the bold and death rides every swell. But first he must navigate the treacherous waters of Elizabethan society, where rival captains like the proud Baldry watch with jealous eyes, and where ambition can forge alliances or spark violence with equal ease. Mary Johnston, whose To Have and to Hold dominated American bestseller lists in 1900, returns to the colonial Virginia setting she knew intimately, but this time casts her gaze across the Atlantic toward the romantic horizon of the Caribbean. The result is a swashbuckling adventure that captures an era when English sea captains were part merchant, part pirate, and wholly convinced that honor was worth dying for. For readers who crave historical fiction that moves with the momentum of a fast-sailing ship, Sir Mortimer delivers action, atmosphere, and the timeless seduction of the open sea.
