Accidental Pirates - and more

 

The Court of Peers

Chris and Kenny step through a crack in a cave wall and come out somewhere else entirely — a place where a man named Court Barnes is fighting for his life against a knife-wielding attacker.

The boys help him bandage the wound, and Court leads them back to his hidden camp: a lean-to cave stocked with pistols, a sword, and a warning that this isn't the Caribbean they'd recognize from any map.

It's the moment the book stops being an ordinary cave hike and becomes something else — and Court becomes the closest thing the boys have to a trustworthy adult in a very dangerous place.

Accidental Pirates is on sale this month

The sale ends by the end of the month. 

Speaking of Accidental Pirates, the sequel, Accidental Wizard comes out next month. I don't know if I'm allowed to give any tidbits to whet your appetite for this rip-roaring sequel, but I'm going to do so. I'm doing final edits. I would love to see some renderings of the scene surrounding this sentence:

All three of us were down, struggling in the pale moonlight on the bloody ground against the survivors of the blood pack.--From Chapter 12 of Accidental Wizard.

I'm dying to tell you more about it, but I'll have to restrain myself. I can say that the story is pure adventure from chapter one to chapter 31. The boys find themselves in a hostile environment where even those who profess to be their allies treat them terribly. Magic is in the air and it has a bite.

Grab Accidental Pirates now and be ready to snatch Accidental Wizard next month.

I'm also more than half done writing book three. 

Fun Fact:

The Mamelukes of Egypt replenished their numbers by buying boys from the Caucasus who were eight to ten years old and training them up to be warriors. They formed the nobility and learned nothing but the art of war. The Beys and their 10,000 warriors lived in relative luxury off the beaten down populace of Egypt. They kept the appointed Pasha, the nominal ruler, confined in the Citadel in Cairo. Murad Bey and Ibrahim Bey ruled at the time Napoleon and his troops landed near Alexandria.

Bonaparte divided his infantry into five divisions under Desaix, Kleber, d'Hilliers (replaced by Menou), Reynier, and Bon. General Donmartin commanded the artillery. General Caffarelli supervised the engineers and the scientific expedition. General Alexandre Dumas commanded the cavalry. Naturally, Berthier was Bonaparte's chief of staff. During the landing, 19 men drowned. 

After landing, Bonaparte ordered 3 divisions, those of Kleber, Menou, and Bon, to march on Alexandria. (I note with interest that his first objective in Egypt was Alexandria. In 1800, he would move on Alessandria in Italy. Desaix would be killed in battle near Marengo and Kleber would be slain by an assassin in Egypt on the same day). There was no road to Alexandria and neither water nor food. The French troops would have to take the city to find water, as they had not been provided with canteens.

Bonaparte, Caffarelli (with one wooden leg), Donmartin, and Dumas all led the way--on foot. By eight in the morning, they came near the outer fortifications of Alexandria. Bonaparte ordered his troops to attack.

--The above is condensed from Herold J. Christopher's Bonaparte in Egypt.