Sea Adventures Fiction

April 1912: Runaway aristocrats Poppy and Daisy Melville sign on as stewardesses for the Titanic’s maiden voyage. After their harrowing rescue by the Carpathia, they are forbidden from disembarking in New York and sent back to England with the other survivors of the Titanic’s crew.

At a maritime auction in Barcelona, Merchant Marine Officer Manuel Coy sees an intense bidding war erupt over a seemingly innocuous 18th-century atlas. The auction winner is the beautiful Tanger Soto, who is obsessed with a Jesuit ship sunk by pirates in the 17th century. Joining forces, Tanger and Manuel hit the seas in search of Dei Gloria and its precious, yet unidentified, cargo. Their quest sends them not only into dangerous waters, but also into the perilous recesses of the human heart.

All my life, I've chased the thrill of new adventures, but nothing scratches that itch for long. So when a mysterious business card slips under my apartment door, promising to grant my greatest wish, my curiosity and sense of adventure get the best of me. Before I knew it, I'd switched places with my look-alike and whisked through the Enchanted Veil to a whole new realm. But in this strange, medieval place, men vastly outnumber women, and they don't take kindly to the word "no." To survive, I disguise myself as a man and get a job aboard a pirate ship run by three handsome brothers.

When a young woman washes ashore on a Fort Lauderdale beach, Sloan McPherson of the Underwater Investigation Unit is called in to consult. Sloan’s instinct says murder, but even then, there are too many questions. For answers she reaches out to Gwen Wylder. The Miami homicide detective is notorious for being manipulative, bitter, a tyrant to her peers, and wicked smart. And she demands something in return from Sloan: fresh insight into seemingly unrelated cold-case murders and disappearances—and a possible serial killer trolling the Florida coast.

In late 1944, America’s recapture of the Philippines is jeopardized by what seems an insurmountable threat from Japan: immense Yamato-class battleships, which dwarf every other ship at sea. Built in total secrecy, these 76,000-ton warships seem invincible. American military intelligence knows of two such ships, but there are rumors of a third, built not as a battleship but as an aircraft carrier. Now ready to go operational from Japan’s heavily defended and mined Inland Sea, a carrier of that size could disrupt the entire invasion effort.

Dive into the immersive world of Jules Verne with The Classic Collection, featuring five iconic novels. Around the World in 80 Days follows the enigmatic Phileas Fogg and his adventurous journey to circumnavigate the globe in record time, encountering obstacles and excitement at every turn. In Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea, readers plunge into the depths of the ocean aboard the remarkable submarine, the Nautilus, with the enigmatic Captain Nemo. Journey to the Center of the Earth takes readers on a daring expedition into the Earth's core, where incredible discoveries await beneath the surface.

When you stop fighting windmills, imaginary or otherwise, you tend to end up with a lot of time on your hands. Of course, Aleksey Rider-Mikkelsen, Lord of Light Island, isn’t going to get bored. And if he did, he obviously wouldn’t join a preposterous hunt for sunken treasure with Ben and his annoying friends to keep himself entertained. He only has himself to blame, therefore, when a fun adventure suddenly turns deadly serious. There’s a reason some treasure should stay hidden.

After a recent daring escape attempt, Zak Nine and his Quom friend Erro are imprisoned in the most inescapable region of Alcatraz. The boys are locked in separate cages, hovering at the end of unbreakable chains over a boiling sea of poison. How will the boys escape their latest dilemma? Even if they break out of their cells, how will they travel across the venomous waters to safety? It's the most perilous adventure yet as the boys try to escape from Planet Alcatraz.

The eldest of the Frobisher brothers, known as the lord of the privateers, Royd expects to execute the final leg of the rescue mission his brothers have been pursuing. What he does not expect is to be pressured into taking with him his emotional nemesis, childhood sweetheart, ex-handfasted bride, and business partner, Isobel Carmichael. But is it Isobel doing the pressuring, or his own restless, unfulfilled psyche? Isobel, unstoppably resolute and determined, has a mission of her own: find her cousin Katherine and bring her safely home.

After the treachery and slaughter they met during the raid on Glendalough, Thorgrim Night Wolf and his small band of surviving Northmen have returned to Vik-lo, where Thorgrim again sits as lord of the Viking longphort. But the Northmen are a restless lot, and soon they find themselves eager to put to sea. Loading weapons and supplies aboard the four longships under Thorgrim's command, they set out in search of the rich merchant ships that now ply Irish waters. But not all cargoes are the same, nor all merchant captains easy targets for the Norse raiders.

Abandoned to die beside the body of her murdered husband on a remote tropical island, a young woman survives only by her faith in God — while still haunted by the memory of her attackers' faces. When British Naval Captain Jonathan Gresham discovers her, she is too traumatized to speak and unable to recall her own name. Determined to protect her, Gresham must outwit his superiors, evade an admiral intent on locking her away in an asylum, and stay ahead of the murderers who will stop at nothing to silence her forever.

'The Wide, Wide Sea' is a Chaos Walking short story. Set before the Spackle War in a small fishing village by the sea, this is a heartbreaking tale of love and loyalty in a divided world. Best listened to immediately after The Ask and the Answer, it features familiar characters such as Mistress Coyle but gives a new perspective on the shocking events in the award-winning trilogy.

Three mismatched troop transports, lots of 29-foot barges, and an under-strength regiment of foot - a waste of Royal Navy money, a doomed experiment, or a new way to bedevil Napoleon's army in Italy? Either way, it's Capt. Sir Alan Lewrie's idea, and it seems to be working, with successful raids all along the coast of Calabria. But it depends on timely information, and Lewrie must trust Don Julio Caesare, a lord of a Sicilian criminal underworld, and his minions, or the amateur efforts of a disorganized network of Calabrian partisans.

"Boredom is dangerous," writes Benjamin Samuel, Co-Editor of Electric Literature, in his introduction to this issue of Recommended Reading. "It can make us lazy, complacent, and if we suffer too much of it we're liable to become boring ourselves. For the whalers at sea in Anu Jindal's Not a Bad Bunch, boredom is far more insidious; according to the ship's surgeon, who narrates the story, it's an early symptom of an infectious and barbarous madness.

Their passion refuses to fizzle out and burns brighter, hotter, and, frighteningly, deeper every time. Rosetta manages to convince the land-hating Alister to port. They need supplies, and the Laughing Siren still needs repairs. But land may be dangerous for them—and not just because of the bounty on his head.

It is 1839 and China has embargoed the trade of opium, yet too much is at stake in the lucrative business and the British Foreign Secretary has ordered the colonial government in India to assemble an expeditionary force for an attack to reinstate the trade. Among those consigned is Kesri Singh, a soldier in the army of the East India Company. He makes his way eastward on the Hind, a transport ship that will carry him from Bengal to Hong Kong.

The year is 1840 and the perilous trade of whaling threatens to dash both fortune and sanity against the rocks for seasoned schooner Captain Stanley Knowles. Professionally adrift and beset by passionate entanglements, Stanley charts a course through hazardous waters, seeking to salvage his affairs while clinging to personal morals amidst mounting turmoil. When ship and shore alike promise danger, every decision carries gut-wrenching risk. Stanley’s path requires outmanoeuvring lethal storms, hostile pirates, political schemes and amorous pitfalls alike with equal dexterity.

Ever since Cambridge-bound Colin Lancaster spied on stable master Patrick Callahan mastering another man, he's longed for Patrick to do the same to him. When Patrick is caught with his pants down and threatened with death for his crime, Colin speaks up in his defense and confesses his own sinful nature. They're soon banished to the faraway prison colony of Australia. Patrick never asked for Colin's help, and now he's stuck with the pampered fool.

By the spring of 1945, the once mighty Japanese fleet has been virtually destroyed, leaving Japan open to invasion. The Japanese react by dispatching hundreds of suicide bombers against the Allied fleet surrounding Okinawa. By mid-May, the Allied fleet is losing a major ship a day to murderous swarms of kamikazes streaming out of Formosa and southern Japan.

Vaguely remembering the accident that might have killed him, retired Navy captain Craig Larson is offered a chance at a new life. Choosing the body of a half-man, half-serpent creature called a naga, Larson must fight to secure a place for himself in this new world. Soon, he finds himself in a fight against pirates, thieves, and terrors of the deep, all of which seek to end his new life before it truly begins. But Larson is not easily deterred.