Historical romance novelist Kate Inskip needs a break. Divorced, overworked, and completely stressed out, her writing buddies decide to surprise her with exactly what she needs-a vacation on a remote island that boasts a rich history and a crumbling castle built by an 18th century pirate. It's the kind of story Kate can't possibly pass up and it will allow her to turn her thoughts from the reality of today to the romance of the past. But things don't...

The war of 1812 continues, and Jack Aubrey sets course for Cape Horn on a mission after his own heart: intercepting a powerful American frigate outward bound to play havoc with the British whaling trade. Stephen Maturin has fish of his own to fry in the world of secret intelligence. Disaster in various guises awaits them in the Great South Sea and in the far reaches of the Pacific: typhoons, castaways, shipwrecks, murder, and criminal insanity.

Witnessing a torpedo attack on a Vietnamese merchant ship by a Chinese nuclear sub, USS North Dakota captain Jerry Mitchell helps to forge a tenuous new alliance with Western Pacific nations in a covert submarine campaign aimed at crippling China's economy and preventing a full-scale war.

"These three early novels are stirring romances of the South Seas; many of these fictional details resemble some of the events in Melville's own life in the early 1840s"--Jacket.