At the Edge of Honor

the long version

A novel about naval warfare in Florida during the Civil War. The year is 1863. The Civil War is leaving its bloody trail across the nation as Peter Wake, born and bred in the snowy North, joins the U.S. Navy as a volunteer officer and arrives in steamy Florida for duty with the East Gulf Blockading Squadron. The idealistic Wake has handled boats before, but he’s new to the politics and illicit liaisons that war creates among men. Assigned to the Rosalie, a tiny, armed sloop, Captain Wake commands a group of seasoned seamen on a series of voyages to seek and arrest Confederate blockade-runners and sympathizers, first in Florida’s coastal waters, then in a dirty and corrupt Havana, and finally near the remote out-islands of the Bahamas. Wake risks his reputation as a tough officer and smart decision-maker when he falls in love with Linda Donahue, whose father is a Confederate zealot, and steals away to spend precious hours with her at her Key West home. Their love is tested as Wake must make the ugly decisions of war in a beautiful, tropical paradise—decisions that will take Peter Wake right up to the edge of honor.