Review

'Nautical novelist Richard Woodman arrives in New World ports with the first three of 14 installments in the Nathaniel Drinkwater series, previously released in the U.K. between 1981 and 1983 and compared by critics there to C. S. Forester's Hornblower saga. Part of the Mariner's Library Fiction Classics, An Eye of the Fleet, A King's Cutter and A Brig of War are set in the late 18th Century and find hero Drinkwater caught up in revolutions on both sides of the Atlantic. Those looking for high seas action and historical intrigue are in luck but these are strictly for devotees of the genre.' --Publishers Weekly, May 2001

About the Author

As a professional sailor, Richard Woodman has progressed from apprentice to captain in a variety of ships. Along with the Drinkwater series, he has written nautical fiction about tea-clippers and cargo liners and is a member of the Society for Nautical Research. Woodman lives in England, and is considered one of the strongest voices in nautical fiction today.

From Publishers Weekly

Although there's some good sea action in Woodman's (Keepers of the Sea new adventure, the chief attraction is the vivid depiction of the politics of Europe and the Royal Navy in Lord Nelson's day. In 1800, Lieut. Nathaniel Drinkwater wangles a command for himself though it's only aboard the "bomb tender" Virago, a 40-year-old former mortar ship. After Drinkwater makes Virago shipshape, she plays an important role in the 1801 attack on Copenhagen. En route to this climactic battle, Drinkwater contends with Navy politics, a cowardly blackguard of a purser, his own fugitive brother and, not least, the Danish artillery. The corruption, snobbery and pigheadedness of the Navy Office, "those portals of perfidy and corruption," is nicely conveyed, as is the Navy lore, augmented by an interesting, low-key portrait of the great Nelson.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Lt. Drinkwater, of the British navy, takes part in the Baltic expedition of 1801. Though in command of a mere support ship for the bomb vessels (as mortar-firing ships were called), his initiative brings him to the notice of Lord Nelson. This leads to a fighting command at the bombardment of Copenhagen and promotion to commander. Drinkwater brings C. S. Forester's Horatio Hornblower to mind. Though quicker tempered and less introspective, Drinkwater has the same decisive nature and willingness to take risks. Also, like Forester, Woodman's technical knowledge of ships and tactics is extensive enough to satisfy the knowledgeable reader's desire for correct detail. The book is intended as part of a series but will stand alone as a good sea story. Recommended for public libraries. C. Robert Nixon, M.L.S, W. Lafayette, Ind.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

This duo of sea adventures spans the historic to the contemporary. Written in 1988, Baltic Mission is an installment in Woodman's Nathaniel Drinkwater series. This episode finds the British sailor on a secret assignment for the crown while Napoleon continues to acquire real estate. Drinkwater is soon at odds with his crew and hamstrung by his drunken first mate. The Endangered Species of this 1992 title are both the British merchant fleet and Capt. John Mackinnon, skipper of the Matthew Flinders. On his last voyage before retirement, Mackinnon, too, finds himself facing a hostile crew, as well as a typhoon and a load of Vietnamese refugees he feels he must rescue and deliver to safety. Now that Patrick O'Brian is gone, this is a solid author to recommend.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author

As a professional sailor, Richard Woodman has sailed in a variety of ships serving from apprentice to captain. Besides the Nathaniel Drinkwater series, he has written nautical fiction about tea-clippers and cargo liners and is a member of the Society for Nautical Research. His latest book is "The History of the Ship." Woodman lives in England and is considered one of the strongest voices in nautical fiction today.

From School Library Journal

Gr 7 Up–Readers will be intrigued by both the romance and complex moral questions in this fantasy set in late-18th-century England. Jessamine, 16, lives with her apothecary father, Thomas Luxton, in the remote countryside near Alnwick Castle. As she keeps house and tends to the gardens, there is one place she is forbidden to go: only her father enters the locked apothecary garden where he nurtures poisonous plants collected from all over the world. Their pastoral existence is interrupted by the unexpected arrival of Weed, a straggly teenage orphan who has an inexplicable knowledge of the medicinal uses of plants. As romance blossoms between Jessamine and Weed, she discovers that he is able to communicate with all growing things. Luxton begins to crave Weed's know-how and allows him into the apothecary garden, where the teen is made physically ill by the overwhelmingly evil personalities of the poisonous blooms. What begins that day propels the three characters into a tangled web of passion, betrayal, and the supernatural influence of the Prince of Poison. The novel explores the nature of good and evil and the consequences of choices whatever their intentions. As Luxton's explanation foreshadows, a plant that can kill used in one way can heal used in another. Told mostly in Jessamine's voice, the story has a compelling sense of urgency and mystery even as climactic events become too melodramatic. The book is based on a concept by the current Duchess of Northumberland who created the real Poison Garden at Alnwick Castle.–Cheri Dobbs, Detroit Country Day Middle School, Beverly Hills, MIα(c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

From Booklist

Jessamine is skilled at growing plants, but her apothecary father won't allow her into his locked garden of poisonous specimens for fear that she will come to harm. Then Weed, an orphan with a mysterious gift with plants, is left with the family, and things take a strange turn at the peaceful cottage. This intriguing fantasy has many tendrils to wrap around teen hearts: there is the budding romance between Jessamine and Weed, a grave illness that threatens Jessamine's life, Weed's supernatural skills, a series of chilling folklore-worthy tests of Weed's love, and encounters with Oleander, a figure who enters Jessamine's fevered dreams and implores her to abandon Weed and join him in death. The haunting ending will leave readers wanting to talk about the themes of cruelty, honesty, and loyalty. The setting is the area near Alnwick Castle in England, the real home of the Duchess of Northumberland, who has established her very own Poison Garden, and where (savvy fans may know) the scenes at Hogwarts were filmed in the Harry Potter movie series. Grades 8-11. --Cindy Dobrez

From Kirkus Reviews

Even though Stone Barrington is back from the Caribbean (Dead in the Water, 1997), the debonair attorney-adventurer seems to spend half his time, as the title indicates, in the waterthough mostly, like the book, treading water or plain floundering. A panicked call from movie star Vance Calder, who married Stone's longtime lover Arrington Carter three months ago, tells Stone that Arrington has disappeared and begs him for help. But by the time Centurion Studios' private jet lands Stone in La-La Land, Vance is singing another tune: Arrington's fine, she's just overwhelmed by her pregnancy, she's gone away to think things over, she's phoning Vance every day. The first, vastly more entertaining half of the resulting tale is nothing more than a series of artless detours away from Arrington, each detour paved with superlatives. Stone presses flesh with wheeler-dealer David Sturmack, the most powerful man in Hollywood. Centurion boss Louis Regenstein, who thinks Stone would make a great actor, gets him a screen test, the best anybody's ever seen. Even the folks in wardrobe rave. (Stone's a perfect 42 Long.) Meantime, Stone's struck up intimate relations with two strikingly beautiful women whose deepest loyalties arent to him. He's also taken an instant suspicion to big-time banker Onofrio Ippolitoand so have we, thanks to a heavy-handed prologue that showed Stone plummeting to a watery grave, courtesy of the Ippolito anchor he's chained to. Once Stone gets loose from that anchor, it's time for the second, far more obligatory installment, as he sets about rescuing Arrington, who's obviously been kidnaped, and tracing the crime (and many others) to Ippolito, Sturmack, and Co., with the help of some antique trickery (rescues from sinking ships, bullet-firing pens) that wouldn't have raised an eyebrow in the earliest James Bond films. Such leftovers don't make very tasty or nutritious fare, not even when the virtues of every predictable scrap are extolled at the top of the author's stentorian voice.(Book-of-the-Month Club alternate selection; $250,000 ad/promo) -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

A richly textured, darkly evocative fantasy set in a beautifully realised fantasy world, the Saramyr trilogy tells the story of an empire that rules over a land being overwhelmed by evil.An evil that comes from within the empire's centre, a sect of magici