The V.I.P. Reader: A Sea of Words - Voyaging Into (& out of) Port ... sailing into oceans of adventure

There is more to a book than a cover, pages and words.

They are portals to different worlds

and exciting adventures.

#VIPReader

Grab a book and enjoy a good read! 

Here are some suggestions...

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got your seasick pills? Set sail into adventure...

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Tony Riches

Set sail into the dangerous world of Elizabethan intrigue with England’s most famous sea captain in Drake - Tudor Corsair ~ a gripping tale of ambition, epic sea battles, and royal secrets:

1564: Devon sailor Francis Drake sets out on a journey of adventure. Drake learns of routes used to transport Spanish silver and gold, and risks his life in an audacious plan to steal a fortune.

Queen Elizabeth is intrigued by Drake and secretly encourages his piracy. Her unlikely champion becomes a national hero, sailing around the world in the Golden Hind and attacking the Spanish fleet.

King Philip of Spain has enough of Drake’s plunder and orders an armada to threaten the future of England.

Amazon buy link: https://mybook.to/DrakeTudorCorsair

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Joan Fallon

Book2 in the series City of Dreams

A seafaring adventure of a pirate raid and a wife's search. 

Set in the medieval Mediterranean, where a master shipbuilder is seized in a pirate raid and his wife refuses to accept that he is lost. Vivid seafaring drama of captivity, enduring love, merchants and raiders, and a search across a dangerous sea.

Early one morning, the ambitious pirate, al-Awar, makes a lightning raid on the shipyard in Málaga and kidnaps Bakr, a master shipbuilder. When Aisha, Bakr’s wife receives the news, she's heartbroken but refuses to believe that she'll never see her husband alive again. She's determined to find where the pirates have taken him. With the entire Mediterranean to hide in, it won't be easy. At the heart of this novel is the tender story of deep love. It's that love which helps him to survive and gives her the strength to never stop searching for him.

This exciting, action-packed novel takes the reader into the medieval world of the merchants and seafarers who sail along the western coast of the Mediterranean, and the pirates who terrorise them.

Amazon buy link: https://www.amazon.com/Pirate-City-Dreams-Book-ebook/dp/B07Z2RRR95?ref_=saga_dp_bnx_dsk_dp*

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Helen Hollick

Sea Witch The first Voyage of Captain Jesamiah Acorne

The Time : The Golden Age of Piracy - 1716.
The Place : The Pirate Round - from the South African Coast to the Caribbean.

Escaping the bullying of his elder half-brother, from the age of fifteen Jesamiah Acorne has been a pirate with only two loves - his ship and his freedom. But his life is to change when he and his crewmates unsuccessfully attack a merchant ship off the coast of South Africa.

He is to meet Tiola Oldstagh an insignificant girl, or so he assumes - until she rescues him from a vicious attack, and almost certain death, by pirate hunters. And then he discovers what she really is; a healer, a midwife - and a white witch.

Tiola and Jesamiah become lovers, but the wealthy Stefan van Overstratten, a Cape Town Dutchman, also wants Tiola as his wife and Jesamiah's jealous brother, Phillipe Mereno, is determined to seek revenge for resentments of the past, a stolen ship and the insult of being cuckolded in his own home.

When the call of the sea and an opportunity to commandeer a beautiful ship - the Sea Witch - is put in Jesamiah's path he must make a choice between his life as a pirate or his love for Tiola. He wants both, but Mereno and van Overstratten want him dead. In trouble, imprisoned in the darkness and stench that is the lowest part of his brother's ship, can Tiola, with her gift of Craft and the aid of his loyal crew, save him?

Using all her skills Tiola must conjure up a wind to rescue her lover, but first she must brave the darkness of the ocean depths and confront the supernatural being, Tethys, the Spirit of the Sea, an elemental who will stop at nothing to claim Jesamiah Acorne's soul and bones as a trophy for herself.

The 7th Voyage - Jamaica Gold -  will be available soon!

Amazon Buy Link: https://viewbook.at/SeaWitch

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Antoine Vanner

Britannia’s Bluff, the 13th volume of the Dawlish Chronicles series

enjoyed as part of the Dawlish series or as a standalone story

November 1915: The Great War rages. Britain has failed to break through the Dardanelles Straits to open a supply route to its Russian allies. Over 80,000 allied troops are trapped in tiny footholds on the rocky Gallipoli peninsula. Weakened by disease and exposure, they are dominated by Turkish artillery and entrenchments on higher ground. Repeated attempts to advance have resulted in mounting casualties. Now, with winter looming, victory – at any cost – is unachievable.

But evacuation from the landing beaches could bring yet worse tragedy – bodies drifting in bloody surf, laden boats lashed by enemy fire as they strain towards the safety of allied ships moored in deeper water.

Admiral Sir Nicholas Dawlish, recalled from retirement on the outbreak of war, sees one chance – a colossal bluff – to reduce the risks of evacuation. Drawing on his half century’s experience of conflict, guile, new technology and outright daring, he plans a lightning diversionary campaign at sea, on land and by air. Speed and surprise will be the deciding factors.

As the Great War gathers momentum, new developments – submarines, radio, armoured vehicles, aircraft and ships to carry them to sea – are changing the rules and possibilities of warfare. Under Dawlish, ambitious and thrusting younger men will seize opportunities, and face threats, hitherto undreamed of. But will it be in time to help prevent a final bloodbath at Gallipoli?

Amazon UK https://amazon.co.uk/dp/B0G3JCJ566
Amazon US: https://amazon.com/dp/B0G3JCJ566

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Elizabeth Revill & Norman Eshley

Oliver Twist has been rescued and is safe and well. Bill Sikes is dead. Fagin is in prison under sentence of death by hanging. His gang of pickpockets and thieves has been disbanded. One of the gang, Jack Dawkins, is in Newgate prison awaiting transportation to Australia. His crime? Theft of a silver snuffbox. What happens to him is the story of a young man trying his best to survive in the harshest of worlds. How does he fare?

It is not for nothing that Jack Dawkins is known as the Artful Dodger!

Amazon buy link: https://amzn.eu/d/6I7U7W2

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Bjørn Larssen

The Ten Worlds Book 2

Grimdark Norse Mythology Retelling of Discovery of Iceland 

Love. Land. Loss. Happy Never After.

The truth Maya fought for all her life turns out to be a lie a thousand years long. She neither understands nor knows how to wield her hidden power, simultaneously endless and limited, forcing her to face responsibility for the harm she causes and parry countless questions she has no answers to. Neither time nor space can stop her – but can she stop herself?

Bound with an unbreakable love spell, Magni and Thorolf, raised in darkness and pain, share only one thing: a fear of revealing their truths. One was born to be a God; the other only knows a slave’s life. One craves peace and quiet; the other believes peace to be a brief reprieve between wars. As they mourn those they have lost, the constant war of their own threatens to destroy all they have left – each other.

Haunted by Gods old and new, in the shadow of Odin’s raven, they head to conquer the new Ásgard. Apart from their demons, nothing and nobody is what it seems. Unwilling to give up love, freedom, or land they’re fated to live happily never after… unless destiny can be altered after all?

http://www.books2read.com/thetenworlds2

Richard Dee

Nautical - for the future

sailing through space is not very different from sailing across earthbound oceans...

Myra - book 1 of the Dave Travise trilogy

Officially, Finn Douglas died on active duty. The truth is more complicated.

When a Federation Navy patrol is ambushed, on the edge of explored space, Finn is the only survivor. Instead of death, he’s given the chance of a new life. All he has to do is keep his mouth shut.

Fitted with a second-hand identity chip, Finn Douglas becomes Dave Travise.

His new boss is Rixon, a trader with flexible morals, living on both sides of the law. Dave soon finds that his new life isn't easy. Rixon has plenty of rivals, all looking for a chance to settle old scores.

As his life lurches from one crisis to another, Dave only has his wits and his new shipmates to keep him safe. If they can be trusted.

amazon UK

Amazon US

More reading suggestions

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"Amazing stories written by highly skilled writers" 

Smorgasbord Book Magazine

https://mybook.to/COURAGE-Anthology

You might also like books written by Helen Hollick 

Personal Website: https://blog.helenhollick.net/

Amazon Author Page: 

https://viewauthor.at/HelenHollick 

cosy mysteries : historical fiction
nautical supernatural adventure 

1066 : King Arthur
ghosts : non-fiction

 anthologies 

2025 annual award winner

THANK YOU!

< PREVIOUS POST

A Ghost Story for Hallowe'en

Circles 

by Nicky Galliers

© https://pixabay.com/users/theotherkev-9436196/

I saw him three times before I decided to talk to him.

I got on the train at Tower Hill, my habitual stop, that first Tuesday in early autumn and he was in the same carriage on the yellow line. It was busy, but it could have been busier, and I saw him standing, holding on to a pole as the train jogged along the tunnel. 

Nut brown hair curled around his nape. The eyes that were so heavily fringed with darker lashes were green, whether naturally or reflected in the wool of his sweater, I would find out, I swore. His skin was perfect and unblemished, and he wore a little beard and moustache. I could understand why; without it, he would have been too pretty. As it was, he was definitely young and beautiful, just how I liked my men.

And he was a man. His sleeves were pushed up to his elbows revealing softly tanned skin covered in downy fair hair, and the hands that gripped the pole were strong and sinewy.

It was so long since I had seen a man to make me shimmer, but I was too shy to approach and satisfied myself with watching him. Two stops further on, at Cannon Street, he alighted, stepping onto the platform without looking back.

He didn’t see me, but I thought of him long after he was out of my sight, and I was returning to Tower Hill.

That was the first time. The second was a few days later and, similarly, I stayed hidden, watched him from further up the carriage, shifting the angle of my head so I could still see him as the other passengers wove between us.

And this third time. He wore brown today, a leather jacket affair, deep and rich, over neat dark woollen formal trousers. His curls bounced as he moved to the rhythm of the train. But it was busy, and I was separated from him by so many people. Get closer. I had to get closer, and I twisted my head awkwardly as I moved through the crowd between us, always to keep him in sight. 

The train slowed and we approached Cannon Street again and I prayed to God he would not get off. Please, don’t get off!

The train stopped; the doors opened, but he didn’t move towards them. His grip on the pole loosened, and he stretched his hand. Then, joy of joys, he wrapped his fingers around the metal once more and held on. 

Other passengers got off; the carriage cleared and he was there, in front of me, as beautiful as I had hoped. I moved closer, willing him to see me. Just five steps, no more, and I made sure he saw me this time. 

He turned, and I smiled up at him. Were my eyes not lovely, and had my face not enraptured a king?

The boy pointed, his mouth open, his eyes so wide they near popped. The scream was loud and visceral, from the heart, from the depths of his soul. 

The other passengers whipped their heads around and stared, shocked and gasping, not understanding. They couldn’t see me, couldn’t see my tears, the tears that had made me a queen and, aye, were there when I was unmade. 

They always screamed now. All those lovely boys, their soft skin and their dreamy eyes, and their piercing shouts and white hot terror. 

I had tried to balance my head back on my shoulders, but it fell off and I decided it was probably better to be honest and merely hold it. The result was rarely any better.

While he sat on the floor of the train, I slid back through the pressing crowd and out of the train, into the tunnels near Mansion House and made my way back to Tower Hill, alone.

©  Nicky Galliers

© https://pixabay.com/users/theotherkev-9436196/

For more Hallowe'en reads....

There is more to a book than a cover, 

pages and words.

They are portals to different worlds

and exciting adventures.

sometimes the unexplainable just can't be explained...
but they make fine stories!

go to our #VIPReader suggestions

OR 

meet some REAL ghosts!

THE COFFEE POT BOOK CLUB GOLD AWARD
 for NON-FICTION 2025

"What distinguishes this collection is its tone. There is no urgency to convince, no reliance on spectacle. Instead, [the authors] approach each presence with measured curiosity... these are not apparitions to be feared, but lives interrupted, emotions unfinished. Even the more unsettling encounters are shaped by empathy rather than alarm. And history is never absent. Each account is gently contextualised, drawing the reader into the rhythms of rural life, the echoes of national upheaval, the quiet tragedies that ripple outward through time. The result is a narrative that feels intimate, where the boundary between past and present is not forcefully broken but naturally thinned." author Patricia Furstenberg

Everyone assumes that ghosts are hostile. Actually, most of them are not.

You either believe in ghosts or you don’t. It depends on whether you’ve encountered something supernatural or not. But when you share a home with several companionable spirits, or discover benign ghosts in public places who appear as real as any living person, scepticism is abandoned and the myth that all ghosts are to be feared is realised as nonsense.

In GHOST ENCOUNTERS: The Lingering Spirits Of North Devon, mother and daughter share their personal experiences, dispelling the belief that spirits are to be feared, while including snippets of interesting history about North Devon and some of the people of the past...

(Includes a bonus of two short stories and photographs connected to North Devon)

"...an utterly captivating blend of travel guide & personal memoir not just for those intrigued by the paranormal - also a beautifully written tribute to the magic of North Devon, its past, and its present. Whether planning a visit or simply looking for a delightfully eerie escape, Ghost Encounters is an absolute must-read. Hollick has crafted a truly special book—one that lingers in the mind like the very spirits she so wonderfully brings to life." Amazon reader

"If you enjoy your history, then you will love this book. I have a long held interest in both History and the Paranormal. The history in this book is very well researched and the descriptions of the paranormal engaging. Kathy Hollick's accounts of the spirits she encounters were fascinating, believable and struck a chord with me. I have a long association with Mediums, most parlour tricksters, one outright fraud and a few where the jury is out. One lady, however, was genuine and Ms Hollick's accounts and experiences sound very similar. I have no hesitation in recommending this book to those who enjoy history and/or the paranormal." Kevin R Agg Founder and former Secretary Supernatural Research Special Interest Group, former investigator Society for Psychical Research

Amazon Buy link: https://mybook.to/GhostEncounters

BiancaVanDijk!

THANK YOU!

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