2nd book in the story of Nathaniel Peake - a young post captain of the "Unicorn" in 1794/95 in the West Indies as he battles the larger French vessel "Virginie". The bar is set pretty low on Nautical Fiction (outside of O'Brian and Forrester) - but this one doesn't quite come up to even that low level. ( )

I read the first in the series of Seth Hunter's Nathan Peake naval adventures a few years back, actually quite enjoyed the story and the character - then forgot all about checking for sequels! I noticed book the second on the library shelf - there is a perk to working in a public library after all - and thought I would try for a lighter seafaring story, after struggling with Mr O'Brian. Seth Hunter (Paul Bryers) is definitely easier on the imagination than the author of the Aubrey/Maturin series, which I suspect inspired the creation of Nathan Peake, and I fell straight back into a companionable appreciation of his quirky hero, here made post captain and given a beleaguered ship named the Unicorn, and her troubled crew, to go after the French vessel Virginie in the Caribbean. The naval jargon is not incomprehensible, the action is well paced , and the instructive but not intrusive blend of historical fact and fiction works well. Also, for readers returning after extended shore leave, like myself, or jumping straight in to the second novel, Hunter helpfully provides a backstory in the first couple of chapters to get everyone up to speed. Great fun in an exotic location - I promise not to wait so long before reading the next novel in the series! ( )

1795: Britain and France are at war and Peake has been engaged in treacherous undercover work in Paris for Prime Minister William Pitt. But he's anxious to play a more conventional role in the conflict. His hopes appear to be realised when he's called to command the Unicorn, a crack new frigate stationed in the Bahamas. But there's a catch; the frigate's previous captain was murdered, almost certainly by members of his own crew. Peake struggles to forge this mutinous gang of reprobates into a fighting force, as they prepare to meet the French Virginie in Caribbean waters. But he soon discovers that they face a far greater enemy than the French - what is American secret agent Gilbert Imlay doing aboard the French ship?

Summary: Commander Nathan Peake has finally been given his own ship, a commission for the captaincy of the Unicorn. There are only two problems: the Unicorn is currently in the Caribbean, an ocean away from Nathan, and the vacancy has come about because her previous captain was found washed up on the shores of New Orleans with his throat slit by mutineers. When Nathan is finally able to claim his ship, he finds her in good repair, but full of a sullen and ill-trained crew... not the ideal situation for the fulfillment of his orders, which include hunting down the French ship Virginie, which is suspected of fomenting rebellion among the slave populations throughout the colonies.

Review: I wasn't bowled over by the first book, The Time of Terror, but I thought it had enough promise that it would be worth picking up the second. Specifically, I enjoyed the characters, and thought individual scenes - particularly the naval ones - were well written, but I thought he tried to cover too much ground history-wise, and that it wasn't particularly accessible. The good news is that the things I liked about The Time of Terror were also things I liked about The Tide of War, and there were more of them; much more time is spent at sea vs. on land in the second book. However, the bad news is that the problems I had with the first book were also present in the second book as well.

Hunter's books are historically dense, and something about the way he presents that history doesn't entirely work for me - I think he's expecting readers to already be somewhat familiar with the time period and the political climate and the major players before they start reading. And while that may be a reasonable assumption for the French Revolution, it's maybe less so for the Caribbean politics of the same time - at least, I'd never read anything much about it. As a consequence, I feel like there were some angles of the plot that were lost on me, and the (rather lengthy) sections that described them felt like they dragged. Because The Tide of War spends more of its time on the naval adventures rather than on the political scheming, it's enjoyable enough as a series of set pieces; I found I could enjoy the action of the moment - say, of Nathan and his men storming a fort - without being able to explain the political ramifications of why they were doing so in the first place. But in general, I prefer my historical fiction with a more accessible history, so while this book definitely had some good moments, as a whole, it wasn't a particular standout for me. 3.5 out of 5 stars.

Recommendation: Fans of the Age of Sail who have a better grounding in the history than I do (or are willing to read over it to get to the battles with pirates) should enjoy this one. It's technically the second in a series but doesn't really rely too much on the events of the first one, so it could be read independently. ( )

Seth Hunter’s The Tide of War took awhile to get going, but once it did it was a ripping good tale. I look forward to reading the next book.