Shores of Darkness

A spectacular weaving of 18th-century fable, history and fiction! Martin Millet came home from the war in Flanders one summer day in 1706 to find his Aunt Effie murdered, his friend Daniel Defoe embroiled in espionage, and himself responsible for Bratchet, his aunt's female servant, whose life is also threatened. Instead of settling on a small estate, as he had hoped, Martin must embark on a seven-year odyssey which will lead him, Bratchet and a mysterious Highlander from London's stews back to the battlefields of Flanders, the court of the Sun King, the perils of piracy on the high seas and the horrors of Jamaica's sugar plantations. Yet did they but know it, the answer to Effie's death, Bratchet's safety and Defoe's commission lies closer to home - in the apartments of Queen Anne, dying with no Protestant heir in view...