Desperation in the Delta

by wjw on June 6, 2026

Cat Island, the fifth and final of my Privateers & Gentlemen adventures, has been re-released by Flagship Editions and is available on Amazon.

The book is built around the long campaign to seize New Orleans for the British, and allows me to make use of the astounding number of extraordinary characters who were involved in that conflict: the pirate Jean Laffite, the ferocious Andrew Jackson, the French Revolutionary General Humbert, the Navy’s Commodore Patterson, and the largest British invasion fleet ever assembled (to date, anyway).

Plus Romance. Plus Intrigue. Plus Action. What more do you want?

Creepy Feet

by wjw on June 6, 2026

I’ve been walking for exercise the last week or so. Which is not unusual in someone recovering from knee surgery, but I’ve had a foot so swollen that I couldn’t get a shoe on it, so walking was kinda out of the picture.

Daily application of compression sox finally reduced my foot to something like normal size, but it will still swell if I leave the sox off for too long. This afternoon I took my sock off and looked at my foot, which was skinny enough to look rather skeletal.

And then a little horror movie started.

Things were moving under the skin. Little swellings forming and moving and fading. And then my foot, of its own volition, began creeping along the floor. Millimeters at a time, but still. . .

It was creepy. And fascinating. And food for a horror film that spontaneously leaped into my head.

Now I’m waiting for Part II to start

Another fortnight, another Privateers and Gentlemen release from Flagship Editions. These are coming in quick succession!

This is The Macedonian, which is the name of a frigate captured by the Americans in 1812, and not a description of anyone in the book. This is the middle book in the Favian Markham trilogy, which opens with Favian’s court-martial, and ends with the war’s biggest reveal, by way of counter-espionage operations, the theft of the frigate in question, and a hairsbreadth escape.

Not to mention a narrow escape by my grandfather, Vihtori Kuusikoski, after an accusation of witchcraft. (The witch was actually my grandmother, but never mind).

Find the Macedonian, and others in the series, at Amazon.

Brig to Battle!

by wjw on May 8, 2026

Brig of War, the third re-release of my Privateers & Gentlemen series, is now available! Find it on Amazon.

Flagship Editions is really cracking on with these. In the last month we’ve seen the release of To Glory Arise and The Tern Schooner, and now a third book is available on the virtual shelves. (If only Dell had brought them out this quickly back in the day.)

And you can’t carp about the price. The books are free if you’re a member of Kindle Unlimited, and a mere $2.99 if you aren’t.

Better get to readin’ before the The Macedonian and Cat Island arrive, sometime in the next few weeks.

One Day More

by wjw on May 7, 2026

What a difference 24 hours can make.

Maybe I should have waited before making my last post.

This morning I went to a doctor who specializes in veinology, or whatever the art is called. The first specialist I’ve been able to see. I was scanned again, and the blood clot is gone. Without a trace.

So all I have to do is keep taking the blood thinner for another couple months, to prevent the condition from returning, and then I’m free as a (slightly limping) bird. I feel lucky, both in my health and in my friends.

Act of Kindness

May 6, 2026

A complete stranger bought me lunch the other day. I never met her, and never spoke to her, and she’d left the restaurant before the waiter told me what she’d done. I guess she saw this geezer limping to the table with his cane, then dining by himself, possibly a lonely old pensioner with mobility […]

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Leaf Coral

May 5, 2026

Palau 2016.

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Arisen

April 11, 2026

In what can be best described as a timely arrival, the new Flagship Editions copy of the first Privateers & Gentlemen adventure is now available at Amazon US and Amazon UK. It may be available in Australia and elsewhere in North America, but I haven’t checked. The books will be available on Kindle only, which […]

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The Trade Winds Blow Fair

April 4, 2026

I’m pleased to report that I’ve just sold five books, Not new books, but books decades old. My Privateers & Gentlemen historical from the early Eighties. The sale is to Flagship Editions, a brand-new publisher dedicated to works with nautical themes. Flagship is based in London but the works will be available in North America, […]

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Beginning the Year of Pain and Mopery

March 26, 2026

It’s well past time for this update, but quite frankly I’m tired enough of living it without having to recount it in narrative form. Plus I was deprived of Internet for over two weeks, as the local router resolutely refused to connect to the computer, until just couple days ago the Guy from IT turned […]

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