Tested by Fate

David Donachie

Jan 2014 · Allison & Busby

About this ebook

The second part of an epic trilogy that chronicles the private lives and dangerous times of England's greatest naval hero and his legendary mistress. It is 1784 and Nelson is sent to the Caribbean to enforce the hated Navigation Acts. While there, he marries Fanny Nisbet but it isn't long before he is ordered to the Mediterranean, where he engages in a string of spectacular naval battles: Cape St Vincent, Tenerife, and the Nile. The ravages of war take their physical toll on Nelson, even as he gains the fame and honour he desperately craves. At the same time, Emma, mistress of Charles Greville, sits as an artist's model, her pictures selling briskly. When Charles's uncle, Sir William Hamilton, joins them in Naples, Emma finds herself the object of Hamilton's desire, and when the mercurial Nelson pays them a visit, she is inexplicably drawn to the brash sea captain. Her eventual marriage to Hamilton seems the epitome of good fortune, opening all the doors of Europe to her - but how can she forget Nelson when he has not forgotten her?

About the author

Born in Edinburgh in 1944, David Donachie has had a variety of jobs, including selling everything from business machines to soap. He has always had an abiding interest in the naval history of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The author of a number of bestselling books, he now lives in Deal, Kent with his wife, the novelist Sarah Grazebrook and their two children.