John Paul: Into the Breach

1761. 13 years before the outbreak of the American Revolution, a far greater global conflict, known later as "The 7 Years War," rages across Europe, Asia, the seven seas and the fledgling colonies of the New World. Into these dangerous times steps John Paul, a teenage boy who must learn all the lessons of life and seamanship on a fragile merchant vessel pitted against deadly French privateers and fierce Atlantic storms. But the fate of the brig Friendship may well be decided not by war, weather and waves but by the brooding secrets that bind the ship's officers together and set them against one another.

John Paul: Into the Breach is the harrowing first voyage of a 14-yr-old Scottish indentured servant who will one day become the father of the American navy. In Into the Breach, an untested youth must learn not only the rudimentary skills of a merchant sailor but also how to navigate manhood, chaos, and conspiracy. In these waters, even one false step can prove fatal.

The John Paul Jones Saga is intended for readers who want to enter into the life and times of the Revolutionary age without the distractions of overly crude language or graphic scenes of amoral behavior. While the years before the advance of Wesleyan-inspired social reforms were full of inhuman barbarity, modern readers need not be dragged through detailed expositions of the fruits of our fallen nature in pursuit of a good story or in order to understand the forces and leaders that made the eighteenth century a pivotal turning point in the history of freedom.

Historian and social scholar F. A. Schneider launches this series of historical novels with John Paul: Into the Breach, a dramatic story of danger, divided loyalty, and high seas adventure.