Jump to ratings and reviews
Rate this book

McGann Saga #2

The Sea and the Sand

Rate this book
The Caribbean, 1800.

The spirit of Harry McGann lives on in his son Toby. Protecting Yankee shores from rogue French ships, he’s seen more action in his nineteen years than his father ever saw in a lifetime.

But his destiny is set to diverge from his father’s in more ways than one. A chance meeting with the beautiful Felicity Crown, daughter of British navy-Captain, sets him on a path of reuniting the family with his father’s old foe.

Times have changed, however, and a new threat to American interests stalks the seas. Barbary pirates operating out of Tripoli have cast their net wide over the Mediterranean, disrupting trade, plundering merchant ships and placing men and women into captivity.

When Felicity’s ship is over-run and Felicity herself sold off to harems across North Africa, the war with these pirates becomes deeply personal for Toby. He believes Felicity is alive and he is prepared to cross the sea and the sand to find her.

But Felicity’s cruel masters will not relinquish her without a fight.

The Sea and the Sand is the epic sequel in the McGann saga.

283 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 1, 1986

202 people are currently reading
74 people want to read

About the author

Christopher Nicole

220 books58 followers
Christopher Robin Nicole was born on 7 December 1930 in Georgetown, British Guiana (now Guyana), where he was raised. He is the son of Jean Dorothy (Logan) and Jack Nicole, a police officer, both Scottish. He studied at Queen's College in Guyana and at Harrison College in Barbados. He was a fellow at the Canadian Bankers Association and a clerk for the Royal Bank of Canada in Georgetown and Nassau from 1947 to 1956. In 1957, he moved to Guernsey, Channel Islands, United Kingdom, where he currently lives, but he also has a domicile in Spain.

On 31 March 1951, he married his first wife, Jean Regina Amelia Barnett, with whom he had two sons, Bruce and Jack, and two daughters, Julie and Ursula, they divorced. On 8 May 1982 he married for the second time with fellow writer Diana Bachmann.

As a romantic and passionate of history, Nicole has been published since 1957, when he published a book about West Indian Cricket. He published his first novel in 1959 with his first stories set in his native Caribbean. Later he wrote many historical novels set mostly in tumultuous periods like World War I, World War II and the Cold War, and depict places in Europe, Asia and Africa. He also wrote classic romance novels. He specialized in Series and Sagas, and continues to write into the 21st century with no intention of retiring.

He signs his books as Christopher Nicole and uses several pseudonyms, some of them female. Pseudonyms used include: Peter Grange, Andrew York, Robin Cade, Mark Logan, Christina Nicholson, Alison York, Leslie Arlen, Robin Nicholson, C. R. Nicholson, Daniel Adams, Simon McKay, Caroline Gray and Alan Savage. He wrote disaster thrillers in collaboration with his wife, Diana Bachmann, under the penname Max Marlow. Under his different pseudonyms he has worked with many publishing houses: Jarrolds, Hutchinson, Simon & Schuster, Coward-McCann & Geoghegan, Jove, Michael Joseph, Mills & Boon, and Severn House.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christop... and
http://openlibrary.org/authors/OL1009...

Ratings & Reviews

What do you think?
Rate this book

Friends & Following

Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!

Community Reviews

5 stars
205 (44%)
4 stars
168 (36%)
3 stars
60 (13%)
2 stars
17 (3%)
1 star
8 (1%)
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
Profile Image for Eric.
369 reviews60 followers
January 18, 2017
The second installment of the McGann series is an interesting and engaging book. In this book, Harry McGann's son, Toby, is the main character. The book continues to chronicle the fledgling U.S. Navy and, in part, the new nation. Another character, Felicity Crown, also plays a major role in the story.

Toby is a 1st Lieutenant in the U.S. Navy in 1800 on board the USS Constellation in combat with a much larger French ship in the Caribbean Sea. Victory is at hand when one of the Constellation's masts falls and La Vengeance escapes. A British Naval ship, Lancer, watched the battle at the request of the American captain. After the battle, a celebration is held aboard the Lancer with the officers of the Constellation including Toby. A passenger aboard, a pretty young woman about Toby's age, is present at the toast. Toby meets Felicity Crown. Afterwards, Toby can't get the girl out of his mind. And thus begins begins an epic romance. Felicity has her own ordeals as she is captured from attack on her ship a year later and taken to become a part of a Moroccan lord's harem.

The book follows Toby's navy career and Felicity's ordeal and the path that gets them together. This is not a fully engrossing romance however. A good section of the book is dedicated to the War of 1812 between the U.S. and Great Britain and how tenuous the existence of the new republic was on the world scene. These were turbulent times.

I became totally engrossed in the characters of this book which, for me, makes for a great read. As historical fiction goes, a fictional story is overlaid on actual historical events. The book spans the years from 1800 to 1825. So there are parts of the book slows a little (but not much) and certain contrivances are created to make the story work. Those contrivances is what keeps this book from being a 5 star read. It also should be noted that there are some scenes of rape so be forewarned. I also think that these books don't need to be read in sequence but it helpful to do so. It appears the whole series seems to follow to the historical development of the US Navy. And, of course, there is a McGann in the ranks.

I look forward to reading the next book in this series.

Profile Image for Calzean.
2,780 reviews1 follower
November 29, 2024
Book 2 follows a similar structure as Book 1. The hero meets a beautiful girl and falls in love with her. He pines for her for years but unfortunately for her she has been captured and in the favourite in the harem of the man who runs Tripoli. And there is her brother who is a cad and is in the RN.
The historical aspects of the times and the development of the US Navy makes this interesting but the love story and how the two loverss keep being united is just too hard to believe.
56 reviews
October 2, 2020
Christopher Nicole in the McGann series made me want to not put the books down. From the information in the book, I learned things I didn't know about in either book 1 or 2 and am reading the next one now.

There were some typos that made the sentence or paragraph hard to understand untill you figured out what was really being said.

This is one of the best series on United States of America history (yes, I know it is fiction, partially). I would rate it up with the Jakes series of books.
Profile Image for Loretta Gabriel.
841 reviews6 followers
September 10, 2020
Full of suspense and adventure

The author has written a very intriguing story about the early US Navy and adventures of its sailors and families. Very enjoyable and entertaining reading, sure to you in suspense and guessing where the story will take you next.
201 reviews1 follower
January 21, 2020
Family counts the most

Well that is book 2 finished and a great story too. The McGann younger carries the flag for family and country. If you read book 1 then 2 is a must read.
Profile Image for Marjorie.
2,099 reviews4 followers
August 7, 2020
Good story

I have read parts of this book. I have to read it someday again but I can’t read the bad parts.
2 reviews
May 4, 2024
Great American story and History lesson

Very well written and historically correct.
I look forward to reading more books by
Christopher Nicole'. I coundn't out it down.
Profile Image for Ernest Godfrey.
198 reviews1 follower
February 18, 2017
Full of salt and grit

A cracking yarn in which the the salt of the sea and the grit of the desert can be tasted. Read this following on from the first and loved them both. The ingenuity of the author in inflicting terrible revenge is believable as the cruel side of the Moorish people is revealed. Need a rest now so on to something else but I have purchased the next volume and will keep it tome back to
390 reviews7 followers
April 7, 2017
Good Story

The continuing saga of the McGann family gets the reader involved in the plot as well as the history of the early American navy.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews

Can't find what you're looking for?

Get help and learn more about the design.