With Marlborough to Malplaquet: A Story of the Reign of Queen Anne

The year is 1704. Europe burns under Marlborough's wars, and in the coal-black heart of northern England, fourteen-year-old George Fairburn is about to discover that the world is far larger and far more dangerous than the roads between Durham and Darlington. When George sets out to find his relatives, he carries with him only pride, independence, and a rival's grudge against Matthew Blackett, the wealthy young heir who has made clear that their paths will never cross peacefully. But as winter closes in and the political tensions between Whig and Tory fracture the nation, George finds himself swept into a larger tide of history: the War of the Spanish Succession, the great duke's campaigns, and the colliery wars that pit family against family. This is a novel about the making of a man during an era when England itself was being forged. Herbert Strang writes with the verve of a storyteller who knows that history is not merely the province of kings and generals, but of ordinary people navigating extraordinary times.