At the Edge of Honor: (Honor Series)

Robert Macomber's Honor series of naval fiction follows the life and career of Peter Wake in the U.S. Navy during the tumultuous years from 1863 to 1901. At the Edge of Honor is the first in the series and winner of the Patrick D. Smith Literary Award for Best Historical Novel of Florida. The year is 1863. The Civil War is leaving its bloody trail across the nation as Peter Wake, born and bred in the snowy North, joins the U.S. Navy as a volunteer officer and arrives in steamy Florida for duty with the East Gulf Blockading Squadron. The idealistic Peter Wake has handled boats before, but he's new to the politics and illicit liaisons that war creates among men. Assigned to the Rosalie, a tiny, armed sloop, Captain Wake commands a group of seasoned seamen on a series of voyages to seek and arrest Confederate blockade-runners and sympathizers, from Florida's coastal waters through to near the remote out-islands of the Bahamas. Wake risks his reputation when he falls in love with Linda Donahue, whose father is a Confederate zealot, and steals away to spend precious hours with her at her Key West home. Their love is tested as Wake learns he must make the ugly decisions of war even in a beautiful, tropical paradise—decisions that take him up to the edge of honor.

About the Author :
Robert N. Macomber is an internationally recognized, award-winning maritime writer, lecturer, television commentator, expedition leader, and researcher, specializing in the Victorian and Edwardian periods. Named the “2020 Writer of the Year” by the Florida Writers Association, he is best known as the author of the acclaimed Honor Series of naval novels and is proud to have readers across the globe. His awards include the Florida Genealogy Society's Outstanding Achievement Award for his nonfiction work on Florida's maritime history, the Patrick Smith Literary Award for Best Historical Novel of Florida (At the Edge of Honor), and the John Esten Cooke Literary Award for Best Work in Southern Fiction (Point of Honor). He is the guest author at regional and international book festivals and was named by Florida Monthly magazine as one of the 22 Most Intriguing Floridians of 2006. His sixth novel, A Different Kind of Honor, won the highest national honor in his genre: the American Library Association's 2008 W. Y. Boyd Literary Award for Excellence in Military Fiction. Each year, Macomber travels approximately 15,000 sea miles around the globe, giving lectures and researching his novels.

Review :
Macomber skillfully describes tactical strategizing while providing the history of Florida's Civil War sea battles. My advice is to sign on early and set sail with Peter Wake for both solid historical context and exciting sea stories! At last we have an American character the equivalent of Hornblower or Aubrey. Macomber is the O'Brian of the Caribbean. The Peter Wake novels are more than just gripping stories about life at sea—they offer a carefully rendered, historically accurate imagining of America's naval history in the second half of the 19th century. Macomber is today's foremost practitioner of a fascinating subgenre—historical fiction of the nautical variety. Building his series on the imagined autobiography of Peter Wake, he's given readers a vivid, multi-dimensional hero. Macomber makes the remarkable times he portrays glow. . . . History comes alive. Robert Macomber writes well and inspiringly so—giving voice to the U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps and its officers and enlisted men (ratings) now lost to memory. . . . Does Wake work? Yes, in many ways he captures the essential—which is, no doubt, why he has so many followers on both sides of the Pacific and Atlantic. Peter Wake continues to emerge as an American hero worthy of his counterparts in naval fiction.