Fast paced, exciting and funny.

Will fill the gaping hole stoved in the timbers of the sea-saga genre by the sad death of Patrick O'Brian

At last, the nautical Flashman! Martin Jerrold looks set to become one of the great British anti-heroes, boozing and lusting his way through Regency England.

Thomas has created in Lt Martin Jerrold someone whom the reader of nautical fiction has never seen before - a character we love despite ourselves, and despite his many faults, faults to which he himself happily admits. Jerrold is no dashing and fearless naval hero, he revels in and celebrates his own shortcomings and ineptitude and he takes us happily along on that wild and hilarious ride. For the lover of naval fiction, historical fiction mysteries, this book has it all. I eagerly await the next.

A deliciously funny, lusty, riproaring read with the added dimension of suspense and murder

'A complex meditation on the frailty of fact and perspective'

Outstanding

Jean Plaidy conveys the texture of various patches of the past with such rich complexity

Triumphantly good

The prospect of Jilly's return, with a novel set in the glamorous international art world and promising "oodles of bad behaviour, intrigue, passion, tears and laughter", will surely cheer all but the most misanthropic

There is enough plot for several novels here (enough sex for dozens), all vividly conveyed in the author's excitable style... Her many fans will not be disappointed

This modern day mythical fantasy is Anne Rice on an epic scale, a hugely imagined world. A chiller thriller from cold of Russia, this one's been selling like hot cakes around the world