The Truelove

The fifteenth installment in Patrick O'Brian's widely claimed series of Aubrey/Maturin novels is in equal parts mystery, adventure, and psychological drama.

Publishers Weekly

This entry in O'Brian's late-18th-century seafaring series will delight fans, while offering newcomers a good place to jump in. Here Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin are assigned to help a Polynesian queen in her struggle with a Napoleon-backed rival, and a female convict is smuggled aboard by a midshipman in Australia. (July)

Patrick O'Brian's historic naval adventure novels were solely the pleasure of British readers until the late '80s; but for Americans, it's better late than never. The appearance of the author's Aubrey-Maturin series in the States, with its compelling protagonists and rich period detail from the Napoleonic Wars, earned thousands of fans including Iris Murdoch, Eudora Welty and Tom Stoppard.