Customer Reviews

The Spithead Nymph (The Sea Officer William Bentley Novels)

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Good read, fast paced and as historically accurate as possible within a fictional book. Needle portrays life in the British Navy more accurately than some other authors of the same genre who downplay some of the harsher aspects of life aboard a royal man of war. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and look forward to reading more of Needle's work.

Jan Needle has chosen to take his reader on a realistic journey into the reality of Napoleonic-era Britain and that reality is unvarnished indeed. His charcters are flawed and thus believable and his villains are not subhuman and thus are confounding. This book is a good read; fast paced and written for those who still enjoy the English language. Be ready for a less than happy feeling though, for I suspect Needle's descriptions reflect what life was really like for most of those who lived in those terrible times. In sum, I recommend this book especially as a change of pace from the usual Napoleonic seafarer genre.

A `Spithead Nymph" is a whore who caters to the Royal Navy, or so I gathered from this novel. Deb Tomelty is a fine and pretty woman who was forced into whoring to survive. Fortunately, one of her customers was Midshipman Will Bentley, and they fell in love. Will is a competent, honest, brave, and loyal fellow with aristocratic family. As the book opens he is in jail on a charge of treason stemming from an adventure with smugglers that almost killed him. But his commander, "Slack Dickie" Kaye, has got him out of jail and into a new adventure, along with his faithful buddy Sam Holt. Will and Sam - now Lieutenants - are to sail to Jamaica to help the sugar planters, who are worried about unrest among their slaves, although they would rather be rescuing Deb, who is, by the way, in serious trouble and on the run. All of them eventually end up in Jamaica, where they do find a revolt of sorts, experiencing mutiny and engaing in piracy along the way. The author tells a very good tale, and seems quite knowledgeable about life at sea and in Jamaica at the time. One peculiarity of this novel is that Will and Deb never actually cross paths in the book; their adventures parallel each other.

It's always fun to discover an interesting new series, and I had hoped to enjoy this novel. Nuts. I didn't enjoy it. I actually gave up trying to get throught it, something I almost never do. The early chapters of this book refer to characters and events from earlier novels in this series, I guess. "Whatever," as the kids say. A lot of what went on in these chapters was either confusing or boring. Why should I care about a character named Deb? Who is she and how is she related to the main character, William? I guess I should have read the first two novels before I started this one, but I don't think I'll bother.