Tuesday 10 July 2012

Review: Weymouth Bound by Paul Weston



Set in 1800, Weymouth Bound is the story of Jack Stone, whose life is changed forever when his ship, the Cicely, is boarded by the French when on passage to Weymouth. Jack discovers that the Cicely's capture is the opening move in a French scheme to strike at the heart of the British establishment, and that he must do his best to ensure that the plot does not succeed.

I picked up a copy of this in my local independent bookshop – Imagine Books, attracted by the cover and nautical flavour. It’s published by Roving Press which I know is a great little publisher specialising in local interest books.

I really enjoyed reading this. The author clearly knows his naval warfare and the scenes on the ship were not only historically fascinating but I could almost taste the salt and feel the roll of the deck as I read. If you are a fan of all things nautical you’ll love this – and even if you’re not it’s a cracking good story.

I couldn’t help wondering at the amount of research that must have gone into this. The whole thing felt really authentic and I learned an awful lot about shipping circa 1800. The descriptions of the London docks and of life aboard ship made me feel as if I was really there, living it with Jack.

In fact reading this put me in mind of Monsarrat’s ‘The cruel Sea’, or Melville’s ‘Moby Dick’ (only without the bits about whale anatomy), which I also loved for all the same reasons.
I do hope we see more of Jack Stone.

4 comments:

  1. "The Cruel Sea" is the best fictitious account of the WW2 Atlantic convoys I've ever read. Placing this work with it is high praise indeed.

    How about Patrick O'Brien's Aubrey-Matarin novels, since they're the same period and better researched and written than Hornblower and Ramage (at least IMO).

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  2. Patrick O'Brien is still on my to be read pile, I'm ashamed to say. But I notice some of the Amazon reviewers have made than analagy.

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  3. Hi there, awesome site. I thought the topics you posted on were very interesting. I tried to add your RSS to my feed reader and it a few. take a look at it, hopefully I can add you and follow.



    Nautical Science

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  4. I picked up Weymouth bound In a farm shop on the a35 and couldn't put it down. Easy read adventure as exciting and credible as Patrick O'Brien. I'll be looking out for more...

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