The Crimean War is at its peak as the winter of 1854 sets in, and Commander Phillip Hazard of the 31-gun, steam-screw frigate Trojan is sent to bring troop reinforcements from Constantinople to Eupatoria. On the way, he must handle an overbearing young nobleman with a taste for blood and the pitiless power of a raging storm.

The Crimean War rages on. Determined to break the stalemate, the British decide to send a spy into Odessa. And who better for this perilous mission than Captain Phillip Hazard, newly promoted to command of the steam-powered Huntress and fluent in Russian? Hazard bravely takes on the task, but saddled with a surly first lieutenant whose previous captain died mysteriously and with his crew plagued by an unknown illness, Hazard soon finds he must depend on his own resourcefulness to survive.

The Crimean War has ended at last, and Phillip Hazard finds himself in China, serving under the fiery Commodore Keppel. The British pull off a rousing victory against a Chinese junk fleet at Fatsham Creek, but later Hazard is dismayed to hear of the Great Mutiny in India. Worried that his two sisters are caught up in the brutal conflict, he joins British relief forces fighting to reach the besieged northern Indian towns of Cawnpore and Lucknow. Arriving in Cawnpore at last, Hazard faces a ...

Unfairly forced out of the army for insubordination, Alexander Sheridan leaves Britain and his former life behind to command a unit of the East India Company. Despised by the aristocratic generals of the regular army, in the heat of the deadly battles of the Crimean War Sheridan and his corps of volunteers must face both the rigors of combat and the treachery of men who should be allies.

Cawnpore is retaken, but they have come too late to stop the slaughter—the relieving British soldiers can only stare at the ill-sited, poorly-defended entrenchment and shake their heads, wondering why. One of only two survivors, Colonel Alex Sheridan is numb. His wife and newborn son lie dead. But now he must join General Havelock's force of barely a thousand men as they fight their way through to the besieged garrison at Lucknow.

November 1853: Sailing beneath the ominous cloud of war between Turkey and Russia, the 300-horsepower, 31-gun steam frigate Trojan is on her way to the Crimea with a large Royal Navy Fleet to deal with the Russian Black Sea fleet and support the conquest of Sevastopol. The Trojan is carrying on board a mysterious passenger: a young woman whose identity must be concealed by orders of the Admiralty. Although First Lieutenant Phillip Hazard is captivated by the charming young woman, he has a ...

1857, Cawnpore: With savage mutineers laying relentless siege to its very gates, the British garrison at Cawnpore, in the north of pre-partitioned India, holds on with little more than will. A ragged band of exhausted soldiers defending some 400 frightened women and hungry children in a crumbling outpost, they wait behind frail mud walls, under a scorching sun, for the uncertain arrival of relief troops.Meticulously researched and historically accurate, Stuart’s tragic story from t...

October 1854: Admidst brutal cannonade and flashing sabers, the Plain of Balaclava thundered to two of the most incredible military maneuvers of all time—the charge of the Heavy and Light Brigades. As the Russian cavalry prepares to launch a full-scale attack to seize Balaclava, the British find themselves in desperate straits. Dangerously outnumbered, they are hoping for reinforcements, but in the meantime they must hold their ground, calling for heroism that will test the courage of even...

In this final volume of Stuart's Sheridan series, General Havelock's Moveable Column—a force of barely a thousand men—has finally fought its way through to the heroic garrison defending the Residency in Lucknow, only to be besieged themselves by the 60,000 mutinous sepoys in the city. They must hold firm until the relieving force reaches them. Meanwhile, Colonel Alex Sheridan volunteers for a dangerous mission, but is captured. He is soon called upon to fight a much more personal war: assa...

To break the stalemate in the Crimea, where the Russian city of Sebastopol still stands strong against the allies' siege, the British must search for unlikely help among the self-reliant mountain people of Circassia. Commander Phillip Hazard of HMS Huntress is dispatched with a select handful of his crew to seek out the guerrilla leader Serfir Pasha and win him over as an ally.

Spring 1855: At the height of the Crimean War, the siege of the Russian city of Sebastopol continues. In a desperate attempt to cut the Russians' supply line at the Sea of Azoff, the Allies commit 15,000 troops, 5 batteries of artillery, and virtually every ship of their Black Sea fleets. Commander Phillip Hazard and HMS Huntress undertake the crucial mission of marking a new channel for the Allies' attack under the formidable shore batteries guarding the Strait of Yenikale. Forced to make...

1857, India: The sepoys, native soldiers serving in the British Army, are massing in response to a prophecy predicting the end of the reign of the British East India Company. Alexander Sheridan—in command of a scratch cavalry force of civilian volunteers, unemployed officers, and loyal Indian soldiers—stands against atrocities on both sides of the conflict, judging all by their merit rather than by the color of their skin or the details of their religion.