War

Sparrowhawk #6

by Edward Cline

Jack Frake and Hugh Kenrick resign themselves to the likelihood of war with the Crown. Hugh returns to England on urgent personal business, while Jack prepares for the coming conflict. In the meantime, Jared Turley, an agent of Earl Basil Kenrick, posing as a Customs official, sets his sights on Hugh Kenrick to punish in the name of his employer. He allies himself with the detested new royal governor of Virginia, Lord Dunmore, and confiscates the Sparrowhawk. Jack Frake and his men march to Boston and Bunker Hill. And during a final battle on the York River in Virginia against the Sparrowhawk, Jack must again face an agonizing choice, one he had made in Falmouth, England, years before.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Historical, Literature, Epic, American

357 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 7, 2006

About the author

Edward Cline is an American novelist and essayist. He is best known for his Sparrowhawk series of novels, which take place in England and Virginia before the American Revolutionary War. He is also the author of First Prize and Whisper the Guns. Outside of his work as a novelist, Cline is known for his writings on esthetics and his defense of capitalism and of free speech. As a writer, his strongest influence has been the philosopher-novelist Ayn Rand. Currently, he is a policy analyst for the Center for the Advancement of Capitalism. He lives in Yorktown, Virginia.





from wikipedia.com

Reviews

[bliss ♡ · Rating 2 out of 5]

if this series was not as long and tedious as it was, this one might have been three stars, but i am just glad to be done.

[Kristina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh man, how this book got me. First, I really should say that this one is BY FAR the best book in the entire series. Edward Cline put aside philosophical musings and just played out the rest of the story. I was gripped from the very beginning and I could not put the book down until the very end, when I had to carefully smooth out the pages which were wet from my tears. It ended with a bit of a cliffhanger, which could be interpreted in various different ways, and since there is no sequel, is left entirely up to the reader's imagination.

The series is not so much a chronicle of Jack and Hugh's quest for and attainment of Mount Olympus and Hyperborea but rather a story of Hugh's journey to the "north" of a moral or philosophical compass, a heading that Jack has already reached and whose possession of it Etain already recognizes and Reverdy fears. As such, I felt a premonition that something was going to happen to Hugh, that he was going to fall victim to some kind of deep evil (or perhaps a better term would be ignorance and vengeance) that, notwithstanding the hardships and heartache he encountered along the way, could not be shielded by his sense of self. But I was pleased and relieved - though nonetheless saddened - that his death happened on his terms, for his own reasons and essentially vindicated everything that he had been through.

It was interesting to note the continuing parallels between the Earl of Danvers (an altogether repugnant and malicious man) and the British monarchy and Parliament. Neither were up to any good once they had been opposed and their pride - and vanity - wounded; but neither had any common sense or sense of self-preservation which could have stayed their hand and forced them to see reason. Each employed agents to carry out their nefarious designs and each was eventually metaphorically bloodied, shamed and their grand schemes dismantled without mercy.

The series is truly a work of art and I only wish that Edward Cline had continued on with the stories of Jack and Etain, John Proudlocks, Jock Fraser and the rest of the Kenrick family. But then again, the book had reached its own Mount Olympus and allowed us mortals to glimpse the glorious view from the summit. The trek down its slopes could only have been disappointing.

[Michele · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best of the series!

[Rob Spykstra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Within the series this was the best volume. Probably this betrays two things about me, the reader. One, this volume has a lot of action. Much more plot driven which I enjoy. Secondly, it is set within the context of history that I am much more familiar with than the previous volumes. Cline has done a nice job of taking facts that many of us learned in history class, and brought them to life. I was doubly sad to finish this book for it was end of a volume, but also of the series. Perhaps I will reread one day and when I do I will learn much more about what drove the colonist to revolution.

[Pat · Rating 5 out of 5]

Terrific

I enjoyed the style, especially the choice of wording.So many would-be authors become disappointments quickly, but not Mr. Cline and his descriptions of the colonies and their varied inhabitants.

[Kent · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fitting end to this six-book series

[Jeffrey Falk · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Hugh thought now: There were so many little truths admixed in so much wrong-headedness. Someday, a philosopher will take all those little truths and formulate a philosophy that cannot be refuted or opposed or contradicted. He smiled for the first time today. Glorious Swain thought I would be the one to accomplish that task. To fashion a golden orrery, that man had called it. To draw the map to Olympus. To conceive of a man-ennobling ethic that did not need the angel-water of any church to give it sanctity, as another Pippin had describe it. Nor the leave of a sovereign.
"No, he told himself. I am not the one for that task. I am more like King Alfred, the scholar, inventor and unifier, and can only contribute notes and isolated truths and see the mere aura of a great possibility. If this new country is ever born, he thought, it will give a greater mind than my own the chance to fashion that orrery, to draw that map, to construe that ethic. It is the only instance of due deference I could ever grant, to a person I may never know."
Reading this series in a culture that has bottomed out into naturalistic thrillers, modernistic Disney movies, and nihilistic comic book movies, at the end of the once-great country whose beginning was dramatized in the series, is a near-ineffable experience. I have little more to say about it except to exhort you to read it. One day, when it will no longer be obscure, philosophers and historians will not quite marvel at (and understand) the series's obscurity in the nation to which it pays tribute. It integrates the sweep and exciting storyline of the greatest entertainment and the depth and characterization of the greatest art--the best of both worlds, actually embodying both aspects of which each side of a false dichotomy claims a monopoly.

[Shane · Rating 4 out of 5]

What an amazing conclusion to the series. I would guess that you could pick this up by itself and it would be a good read, but what history and intrigue you would miss. Hugh and Jack finally see eye to eye, and while the story doesn't really begin with the Sparrowhawk, it sure does end with her.

Throughout the series I wondered why the ship that played such a small role in the story had such a prominent place in the title. During a play you don't really think about the curtain but it plays a vital role, opening and closing to set the scene or to bring in a new or returning character. Just as the curtain with its opening and closing sets the play, the Sparrowhawk with her journeys across the Atlantic, back and forth, forth and back, sets this tale of discovery.

With this conclusion, almost everything comes full circle. It seems almost that we travelled the around the world to return to where we started. After such a journey however, it is the traveler who has changed and the destination may look the same on a map, but it is also changed by the time and perspective.

[Don Livesay · Rating 4 out of 5]

This series was excellent overall. The author has a point of view regarding religion. He's a humanist, but I really valued his choice of words, his style, and his keen grasp of history and the culture of the the time.

[Amanda · Rating 5 out of 5]

A proper ending to a fantastic series. I wish more people read this book and perhaps they would understand a bit more about our freedom in America.