Captain Petroc Gray, commander of the ship-rigged sloop of war, HMS Kestrel, is drawn into diplomacy, intrigue, and espionage when he rescues the Freiherr von Dieffenbach and his family off the island of Rügen in the Baltic. The Freiherr is an important and valuable connection in the struggle to beat the Napoleonic Continental blockade of British trade, and his daughter, Silke, is a delightful young woman with a quick wit, brilliant intelligence, and a keen eye for observing the e...

Ned Farrier has grown into a fine young man after the agony and humiliation of a London workhouse and a gentleman’s club in Vauxhall where he was rescued with two friends as described in Limehouse Boys, a work of historical fiction. He learns the seagoing trade as a bargeman and works his way up to Captain of his own merchant ship bound to Australia, South Africa and beyond. Then, Ned loses his young wife and child to the consumption, and the Cape Colony of South Africa tugs at his heart a...

A freak accident on board the HMS Spartan during a sea battle with the French navy in 1804 catapults Midshipman Harry Heron and his shipmates Ferghal O'Connor and Danny Gunn four hundred years into the future, landing them on the NECS Vanguard, flagship of the World Treaty Organisation Fleet. While Captain Blackwood and Major Heron sort out the mystery and determine whether the young men are alive or dead, Harry and his friends are faced with the challenge of learning new roles aboard a sp...

A freak accident on board the HMS Spartan during a sea battle with the French navy in 1804 catapults Midshipman Harry Heron and his shipmates Ferghal O’Connor and Danny Gunn four hundred years into the future, landing them on the NECS Vanguard, flagship of the World Treaty Organisation Fleet. While Captain Blackwood and Major Heron sort out the mystery and determine whether the young men are alive or dead, Harry and his friends are faced with the challenge of learning new...

In Harry Heron: No Quarter, Book Three of the Harry Heron Series, Harry and his best friend Ferghal O'Connor are cadets at Fleet College, eager to master their skills in preparation for commissioning to a ship. They've barely stepped foot on campus when they realize they’re targeted and sabotaged at every turn, but this doesn't stop them from exuberant participation in the Sailing Regatta, the Gun Run, and the usual flirtations and hijinks of college life. Meanwhile, the Consortium, suppor...

In Harry Heron: Awakening Threat, Harry and Ferghal lead their fleet of space corvettes in the battle against the awakening threat of the Niburu using technology adapted from the Siddhiche. There are three things you need to know about Harry Heron and Ferghal O'Connor: *Born in the late 1700s, they catapulted through time and space from the gun deck of the HMS Spartan during a sea fight with the French in 1804 to the starship NECS Vanguard in 2204. *Best friends since their boyhood in Irel...

In Harry Heron: Savage Fugitive, Harry and Ferghal lead a band of fugitives of the Fleet in a battle against the Consortium on Planet Lycania inhabited by the very canine-like Canids.There are three things you need to know about Harry Heron and Ferghal O'Connor: *Born in the late 1700s, they catapulted through time and space from the gun deck of the HMS Spartan during a sea fight with the French in 1804 to the starship NECS Vanguard in 2204. *Best friends since their boyhood in Ireland, th...

Conflict in Shadow is a tightly woven story combining science fiction, space adventure, and intelligence-driven military action.Conflict in Shadow takes the reader on an exploration of inter corporate sci-fi, military space adventure, and intelligence-driven suspense. It provides a window on a naive young man’s journey from teenage ‘fugitive’ for enemies of the world he grew up in, to a useful youngster developing his own skills and talents in support of his mentors. It watches as C...

Newspaper publishers played a crucial role in transforming Texas into a modern state. By promoting expanded industrialization and urbanization, as well as a more modern image of Texas as a southwestern, rather than southern, state, news barons in the early decades of the twentieth century laid the groundwork for the enormous economic growth and social changes that followed World War II. Yet their contribution to the modernization of Texas is largely unrecognized.This book investiga...

In a state assumed to have a constitutionally weak governor, the Speaker of the Texas House wields enormous power, with the ability to almost single-handedly dictate the legislative agenda. The House Will Come to Order charts the evolution of the Speaker's role from a relatively obscure office to one of the most powerful in the state. This fascinating account, drawn from the Briscoe Center's oral history project on the former Speakers, is the story of transition, modernization, an...

The history of the Lone Star state is a narrative dominated by larger-than-life personalities and often-contentious legends, presenting interesting challenges for historians. Perhaps for this reason, Texas has produced a cadre of revered historians who have had a significant impact on the preservation (some would argue creation) of our state’s past. An anthology of biographical essays, Writing the Story of Texas pays tribute to the scholars who shaped our understanding of Texas’s past and,...

Profiles in Power offers concise biographies of fourteen twentieth-century Texans who wielded significant political power and influence in Washington, D.C. First published in 1993 by Harlan Davidson, it has been revised and updated with new chapters on John Nance Garner and Henry Gonzalez and expanded chapters on Lyndon Johnson, Barbara Jordan, Ralph Yarborough, Jim Wright, and John Tower. Demonstrating the validity of a biographical approach to history, the book as a whole covers...