Hornblower and the Hotspur
by C. S. Forester
The Peace of Amiens is collapsing. Napoleon builds ships and builds an army just across the English Channel. At the age of twenty-seven, Horatio Hornblauer, who distinguished himself as one of the bravest and most resourceful officers of the Royal Navy, commands a three-masted Hotspur on a dangerous reconnaissance mission that escalates into a series of spectacular combat when the battle begins. All this time, the introverted young commander struggles to understand his new daughter-in-law and mother-in-law, his officers and crew, as well as his own "cursed unhappy temperaments" – issues that perhaps bother him more than Bonaparte's cannonballs.
