Richard Woodman

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Richard Woodman's Latest Book

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  • Bibliography:
    47 Books (3 Series)
  • First Book:
    April 1981
  • Latest Book:
    October 2021
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Full Series List in Order

A Kit Faulkner Naval Adventure

1 - A Ship for the King (Nov-2011)
2 - For King or Commonwealth (Aug-2012)
3 - The King's Chameleon (Nov-2013)

Nathaniel Drinkwater

1 - An Eye of the Fleet (Apr-1981)
2 - A King's Cutter (Jul-1982)
3 - A Brig of War (Apr-1983)
4 - The Bomb Vessel (May-1984)
5 - The Corvette (Apr-1985)
6 - 1805 (Oct-1985)
7 - Baltic Mission (Nov-1986)
8 - In Distant Waters (Mar-1988)
9 - A Private Revenge (May-1989)
10 - Under False Colours (May-1991)
11 - The Flying Squadron (Jul-1992)
12 - Beneath the Aurora (Apr-1995)
13 - The Shadow of the Eagle (Apr-1997)
14 - Ebb Tide (Jun-1998)

Sword of State

1 - The Forging (Mar-2017)
2 - The Tempering (Jun-2017)

Book List in Order: 47 titles

  • An Eye of the Fleet

    Nathaniel Drinkwater - 1

    Nathaniel Drinkwater's life at sea begins with the HMS Cyclops' capture of the Santa Teresa during Admiral Rodney's dramatic Moonlight Battle of 1780. Subsequently, Drinkwater's courage and initiative are put to the test as the Cyclops pursues Americ...

  • A King's Cutter

    Nathaniel Drinkwater - 2

    It is 1792 and Nathaniel Drinkwater is back in the Royal Navy. He is involved in secret and dangerous operations off the French Coast, including the rescue of émigrés and the landing of agents....

  • A Brig of War

    Nathaniel Drinkwater - 3

    In A Brig of War, Nathaniel Drinkwater is promoted lieutenant of the brig Hellebore. He finds routine convoy escort duties end abruptly when Admiral Nelson, pursuing the French fleet to Egypt, sends Hellebore to the Red Sea with an urgent warning to ...

  • The Bomb Vessel

    Nathaniel Drinkwater - 4

    GOOD FOR NOTHING . . That's what they said about the old Virago, a former bomb vessel now relegated to the role of service ship. But when Nathaniel Drinkwater is given command he is determined to restore it to its former fighting glory. Against thi...

  • The Corvette

    Nathaniel Drinkwater - 5

    The frozen splendor of the Arctic Ocean and the absorbing drama of a nineteenth-century whale hunt unfold as Drinkwater escorts a whaling fleet to Greenland and meets disaster, treachery, and death....

  • 1805

    Nathaniel Drinkwater - 6

    In the tradition of C.S. Forester, ex-sailor Richard Woodman brings history to life in a rousing tale of daring deeds and clashing cutlasses. it is the summer of 1804 and Napoleon is massing his vast army for the invasion of England. His powerful Com...

  • Baltic Mission

    Nathaniel Drinkwater - 7

    In the seventh tale of the highly acclaimed Drinkwater series, Captain Drinkwater's frigate, HMS Antigone, is ordered to the Baltic Sea in the spring of 1807 as Napoleon's grip has begun to reach across Europe to the borders of Holy Russia. As countr...

  • Arctic Treachery

  • Decision at Trafalgar



  • In Distant Waters

    Nathaniel Drinkwater - 8

    From the tide-torn waters of the Thames, where Captain Nathaniel Drinkwater is compelled to handle a deserter, to the seas off Cape Horn, storm-scoured gateway to the Pacific, the great cruiser Patrician is tense with the threat of mutiny. Despite th...

  • A Private Revenge

    Nathaniel Drinkwater - 9

    In the aftermath of a typhoon, Captain Nathaniel Drinkwater brings his Britannic Majesty’s frigate Patrician into the shelter of the Pearl River upon the China Coast. He is entangled in bizarre events following the British occupation of Macao and A...

  • Under False Colours

    Nathaniel Drinkwater - 10

    Acting for the Admiralty's Secret Department, Captain Nathaniel Drinkwater advertises his cargo of Russian military stores, thus embarking on a scheme to flout Napoleon's Continental System and antagonize the French Emperor's new ally, Czar Alexander...

  • Endangered Species

    Captain John Mackinnon and his ship, the Matthew Flinders, are embarking on their last voyage. Both endangered species, they symbolize the irreversible, quiet decline of the British merchant fleet. But this journey to Hong Kong will prove to be anyth...

  • The Flying Squadron

    Nathaniel Drinkwater - 11

    It is 1811 and Napoleon’s French Empire dominates Europe. Desperate to stem the encroaching French tide and avert war with the emerging power of the United States, the Royal Navy orders Captain Nathaniel Drinkwater to the Chesapeake Bay to heal the...

  • Accident

  • Beneath the Aurora

    Nathaniel Drinkwater - 12

    The year is 1813. Captain Nathaniel Drinkwater succeeds Lord Dungarth as head of the Royal Navy’s Secret Department. While the Grand Army of Napoleon faces defeat on the battlefields of Germany, the discovery of a secret treaty with America leads D...

  • Waterfront

  • The Shadow of the Eagle

    Nathaniel Drinkwater - 13

    It is 1814 and Napoleon has abdicated as Emperor of the French. King Louis XVIII is brought out of his English exile and escorted back to France by an Allied squadron commanded by the Duke of Clarence. The "Great War" is at an end and Europe prepares...

  • Captain of the Caryatid

    Captain James St John Stanier, formerly Porth Ardur's ambitious Harbour Master, has now been promoted to Commissioner of Celtic Lighthouses. And from this elevated position he is determined to get one over on Septimus Macready, captain of the lightho...



  • Under Sail

  • Ebb Tide

    Nathaniel Drinkwater - 14

    It is 1843 and Captain Nathaniel Sir Drinkwater embarks on the paddle-steamer Vestal for an inspection of lighthouses on the west coast of England. Bowed with age and honors, the old sea officer has been drawn from retirement on half-pay to fulfill h...

  • The Cruise of the Commissioner

    Captain James St John Stanier is back, and he has a score to settle…Once Porth Ardur’s Harbour Master, the ever-ambitious Stanier has been newly elected as the Commissioner of Celtic Lighthouses. He sees his elevated position as the perfect tool ...

  • Wager

    Wrenched by tragedy from a peaceful and respectable middle-class home in Victorian London, Hannah Kemball finds herself accompanying her father, Captain “Cracker Jack” Kemball, aboard the tea-clipper Erl King on a voyage to China. It is 1869. In ...

  • The Darkening sea

  • The Blaze of Glory

    BALTIC MISSION 1807: HMS Antigone is ordered to the Baltic. Napoleon's relentless advance across Europe has brought him to the very brink of Holy Russia. And Captain Nathaniel Drinkwater is faced with the most perilous mission of his career. IN DISTA...

  • The East Indiaman

    The final thrilling instalment of The William Kite Naval Adventures.The American Revolution is in full swing, with Yankee privateers swarming in British waters. For ship-owners like Captain William Kite of Liverpool, ruin is only a gun-shot away.When...

  • Death or Damnation

    UNDER FALSE COLOURS - Captain Drinkwater, accustomed to commanding one of His Britannic Majesty's ships of war, now finds himself as a lowly shipmaster of the Merchant Marine. The disguise may not be flattering but the mission, conceived by the Admir...

  • The Disastrous Voyage of the Santa Margarita

    Among the coral outcrops of the island of Rota, lies the wreck of a Spanish galleon, the Santa Margarita - Spring 1601. This is a reconstruction of the Santa Margaritas disastrous last voyage, beset by an extraordinary sequence of typhoons and storms...

  • A Ship for the King

    A Kit Faulkner Naval Adventure - 1

    A thrilling maritime adventure, the first in a new series set against the backdrop of the English Civil War Bristol, England, 1618. Kit Faulkner is a young vagrant orphan, but his life changes forever when two gentlemen spot his potential and he ...



  • For King or Commonwealth

    A Kit Faulkner Naval Adventure - 2

    An exhilarating high seas adventure set during the English Civil War. 1649. England has been torn asunder by a civil war that has pitted Parliamentarians against Royalists. Captain Kit Faulkner, bound to the Royalist cause, has been living in exi...

  • The King's Chameleon

    A Kit Faulkner Naval Adventure - 3

    England, 1659. Captain Kit Faulkner’s house is prospering; his eldest son, Nathaniel, has recently returned from a profitable trip to Jamaica in the good ship Faithful, and his daughter, Hannah, has made a suitable match with a young sailor. But th...

  • The Ice Mask

    Guy Edwardes, a retired soldier and adventurer, has recently returned from a single-handed yachting voyage to the Arctic.But when Guy returns from the icy waters of the Svalbard archipelago, he is a very different man to the one that cast off. He is ...

  • The Forging

    Sword of State - 1

    Winter 1644, the Tower of London. Colonel George Monck has been charged with high treason. A brilliant soldier, admiral and military governor, Monck joined the King's men in besieging Nantwich. But the Parliamentary side's more disciplined army succe...

  • The Tempering

    Sword of State - 2

    The year is 1652. General George Monck has been through an awful lot since he sat as a prisoner in the Tower of London eight years before. He had led his men admirably through campaigns in Ireland and Scotland, but still storm clouds surround his fut...

  • The Wielding

    1659. Lord General George Monck has set up camp on the Scottish border with his loyal army. He has plans to retire, to spend the rest of his years on his estates with his wife, Anne, and son, Kit. But the changing political climate forces him to marc...

  • Sword of State

    Winter 1644, the Tower of London.Colonel George Monck is confined to his prison chamber in St Thomas's tower, charged with high treason.A brilliant soldier, admiral and military governor, Monck joined the King's men in besieging Nantwich.But the Parl...

  • Voyage East

    A stirring tale of life aboard ship during the last great days of the Merchant NavyNew junior officer Laddie signs on to the cargo liner Antigone on a voyage to the Far East. He finds himself part of a crew who all have their own stories to tell abou...

  • Beyond Madagascar

    Richard Woodman has written an original, compelling and brilliantly imagined blend of fact and fiction with all the skill of a novelist at the height of his powers. Frank McLynnA tale of deception, corruption, courage and adventure, Beyond Madagascar...

  • An Absence of Imagination

    It is with the accurate capturing of detail and the sensitive recalling of a long-gone way of life that Woodman enhances and enriches his sea-tales. Captain Joshua Garner. Captain John Sanford is the Master of the British steamship Da Feng of Hong Ko...



  • The Judgement of his Peers

    'A powerful, compelling yarn in the tradition of Joseph Conrad.' Matthew Willis When four old friends, three of whom are retired ship's captains, meet for a few days' sailing and reminiscing, one of them, Mitchell, asks 'did any of you run across Cla...

  • Time and Tide

    Cold Truth'A tense, atmospheric nautical thriller, filled to the gunwales with Woodman's trademark authenticity. The Cold Truth is a chilling journey into the heart of a dark, Arctic mystery.' Matthew Willis, author of BastionShortly after the carnag...

  • A River in Borneo

    It is the summer of 1964 during the Far Eastern war euphemistically called ‘Confrontation.’ A British Royal Marine patrol has orders to penetrate Indonesian Borneo to locate a river thought by Allied intelligence to be in use by the Indonesians t...

  • Act of Terror

    • / General Fiction
    • Buy Buy

    A cruise liner hijacked on the high seas...the terror is about to begin... As the luxury cruise liner Adventure sails from a United States port, a world-wide spate of terrorist bombing breaks out. At first there seems to be no apparent connection bet...

  • The Antigone

    • / General Fiction
    • Buy Buy

    First-timer Laddie, nicknamed by the crew "Four-O" as the registers of the Fourth Mate, sets to sea aboard the cargo liner Antigone. On a voyage to the Far East he meets a bewildering array of characters among the crew with their own experiences and ...

  • Dead Man Talking

    • / General Fiction
    • Buy Buy

    A wartime attack on a defenceless merchant convoy brings the intent of the Admiralty into question. Was it merely a bad tactical decision or something more sinister?Why did Admiral Dudley Pound scatter Convoy PQ17 in the Barents Sea on the evening of...

  • The Guineaman

    • / General Fiction
    • Buy Buy

    Fear and fighting on the High Seas.When William Kite runs away to sea to escape a charge of murder, he finds himself aboard the Enterprize, a Liverpool Guineaman, or slave ship, destined for the coast of West Africa. Once loaded with slaves, the ship...

  • The Privateersman

    • / General Fiction
    • Buy Buy

    The second instalment of The William Kite Naval Adventures, full of battle and intrigue.The Seven Years War is over, and William Kite is now a successful ship-owner in Liverpool, happily married and gradually taking over the running of the business. ...

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Richard Woodman has published 47 books.

Richard Woodman does not have a new book coming out soon. The latest book, A River in Borneo, was published in October 2021.

The first book by Richard Woodman, An Eye of the Fleet, was published in April 1981.

Yes. Richard Woodman has 3 series.
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