Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    A Battle Won
    A Battle Won
    A Battle Won
    Audiobook14 hours

    A Battle Won

    Written by S. Thomas Russell

    Narrated by Nick Boulton

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Master and Commander Charles Hayden returns in the sequel to the international best-seller Under Enemy Colors. Winter, 1793-the Reign of Terror rips through revolutionary France. In Plymouth, England, Master and Commander Charles Hayden is given orders to return to the ill-fated HMS Themis as the British fight the French for control of the strategically located island of Corsica. But within hours out of port, Hayden's uncanny knack for attracting the attention of the French navy sees the Themis thrown back into action. When she lands in Corsica, and her men join forces with native insurgents, Hayden finds himself at the vanguard of a brutal clash of empires. "Vivid and evocative, especially about what Mr. Russell knows best, the sea and sailing."-Wall Street Journal on Under Enemy Colors "A first-rate debut features taut plotting, liberal action, and an attractively modest hero: Royal Navy Lieutenant Charles Hayden."-Publishers Weekly on Under Enemy Colors "A colorful account of duty and honor, punctuated by the cannonade of naval welfare."-Kirkus Reviews on Under Enemy Colors
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateJul 8, 2011
    ISBN9781449836740
    A Battle Won

    Related to A Battle Won

    Titles in the series (3)

    View More
    View More

    Related audiobooks

    Action & Adventure Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Taken By Surprise

      Oct 16, 2018

      Taken By Surprise
      5 min read

    • Article

      Cooking with Patrick O’Brian

      Feb 15, 2019

      Cooking with Patrick O’Brian
      11 min read

    • Article

      Taken By Surprise

      Jan 17, 2018

      Taken By Surprise
      5 min read

    • Article

      In Praise Of Naval Discipline

      Jan 30, 2020

      Two hundred years ago this year, HMS Ganges, an 84-gun, second-rate ship-of-the-line, was being prepared for launching at the Bombay shipyard in India. After more than 80 years of acting as a British Empire gunboat she was ‘retired’ to the calmer wat

      2 min read

    • Article

      Bleeping Frustration

      Sep 8, 2023

      Bleeping Frustration
      2 min read

    • Article

      The Monarch Of All I Survey

      Nov 22, 2019

      The Monarch Of All I Survey
      6 min read

    • Article

      At The Water’s Edge

      May 12, 2023

      At The Water’s Edge
      8 min read

    • Article

      Cooking Whisky

      Aug 11, 2023

      Cooking Whisky
      3 min read

    • Article

      Stormy Lesson

      May 9, 2019

      Stormy Lesson
      8 min read

    • Article

      Showdown On Lake Erie

      Jan 4, 2022

      Showdown On Lake Erie
      8 min read

    • Article

      Tea On The Nile

      Feb 26, 2021

      Tea On The Nile
      5 min read

    • Article

      Tea On The Nile

      Feb 26, 2021

      Tea On The Nile
      5 min read

    • Article

      The Battle of Valcour

      Jun 24, 2021

      The Battle of Valcour
      9 min read

    • Article

      Life Is But A Dream

      Aug 26, 2020

      Life Is But A Dream
      4 min read

    • Article

      Risen From The Ashes

      Nov 30, 2021

      Risen From The Ashes
      12 min read

    • Article

      A TALE OF TWO STERNS SEEN IN ROTTERDAM letter of the month

      Feb 23, 2024

      In response to Bill Keene’s excellent article on SS Rotterdam (SM, Jan), I thought I would share a couple of photographs I took during a recent stay on the iconic ship. During my stay, my attention was drawn to moored to the old Holland America Pier,

      6 min read

    • Article

      Ready For Sea

      Mar 14, 2024

      Sam Llewellyn writes nautical thrillers, edits The Marine Quarterly, and is perpetually patching up a 30ft ketch: samllewellyn.com Late in the 1980s, I was at a festival in the Baltic, doing some research for a thriller I wrote called Blood Knot, whi

      3 min read

    • Article

      The Ashes

      Sep 9, 2022

      It’s almost 50 years since my wife Roz and I moved aboard our first serious cruising boat. While paying off our overdraft, we lived in a mud berth on a rickety pier attached to what was then Moody’s yard at the top of the Hamble River. It was univers

      5 min read

    • Article

      Skeleton Crew

      Nov 6, 2020

      Skeleton Crew
      6 min read

    • Article

      Skeleton Crew

      Nov 6, 2020

      Skeleton Crew
      6 min read

    • Article

      Chartroom

      Dec 20, 2022

      Further to the great square-rigger Preussen and her loss (SM, Sept 2022), with Peking now back in her home port of Hamburg, perhaps it is opportune to mention another of the Flying P sailing ships, the great Preussen. A five-masted full-rigged ship,

      6 min read

    • Article

      Global Voyage Ends In A Watery Grave

      Jun 9, 2023

      In November 1918 George Martin RNVR was hunting determinedly around the south coast for a ship. His previous ship Chance had been requisitioned in 1914 and was “no good as a yacht any longer”. By luck he discovered the 37-tonne yawl Amaryllis sunk in

      7 min read

    • Article

      New World Marauder

      Dec 12, 2017

      Gangsters aside, pirates are perhaps the most romanticised outlaws of them all. And yet the annals of fiction are packed with larcenous sea dogs whose rakish flair is not so much heavily compromised as non-existent. Robert Louis Stevenson’s anti-hero

      2 min read

    • Article

      Pilgrim’s Progress

      Feb 11, 2022

      Pilgrim’s Progress
      5 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for A Battle Won

    4/5

    49 ratings5 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      Rather good. Nice touch of humor, suspense, losses and gains. Good series so far!
    • 4/5
      Our hero Charles Hayden, is reunited with the crew of the Themis, the crew and ship no one will have. That is a good thing for we like these characters. We have spent time with them and in the first book we saw how heroic and adaptable they all were.But here, in the second book we find that the author's craft is just not up to what he gave us in the first book. There it was action, action, action, with the interludes well placed for the pacing. Here, we have some sequences, his historical (as you can read in the notes) section about the guns taking so long to develop and then implement that it becomes more of a bore than a needed part of the tale.And the twist at the end, which is left unresolved is a further disappointment. Were there no third book, then one would have that length of time until the third is released to have a completion. No way to write a series. This book there was less of the angst the character suffered about his parentage, and the hint we have at the end, that his parentage is at the heart of opposing forces at the Admiralty is a theme that should be developed. But we also see that there is too much favoritism giving jobs to Hayden where other Captains and Commanders in the fleet need to either be employed, or have reasons that they aren't. Last is the fault I found with the first book, where the nautical terminology is thrown so fast at us that we have little idea what it means or what is happening to the ship. So much that it can not be followed.Otherwise, I hope the series continues to develop. It may not rival as I had hoped Stockwin's Kydd, but it is still early days.
    • 3/5
      A swashbuckling British naval commander, Hayden takes on the French in the early stages of what later became known as the Napoleonic Wars. He is considerate to his officers and men, brave and successful against the French, but has to fight his own battles with the Admiralty and in his personal life. Sound familiar? Well, it is fair to say that Hayden follows firmly in the tradition of Hornblower and Bolitho. Russell's penmanship isn't quite up to the standard of C.S. Forrester, but is a match for Alexander Kent (aka Douglas Reeman). And though it isn't either overly original or great literature, it's a rollicking read, pacy and full of action.
    • 4/5
      Although not quite as good as his first book, “Under Enemy Colors” this story by Sean Russell was still a wonderful read. In this follow-up novel I found my daring Captain Hayden going off to fight another sea battle. I also found that Mr. Russell did a super job of blending fictional and non-fictional characters, scenes and storyline. He did this so well that the book kept my interest page after page. The details he brought out of the wooden ships and their construction and makeup was just icing on the cake. If you’ve been craving a super sea story during the golden age of sail, then I recommend “A Battle Won.” Enjoy.
    • 5/5
      The just released, A Battle Won by S. Thomas Russell, is classic nautical fiction – vivid, fast paced and full of drama, both on sea and land. Master and Commander Charles Hayden is a gifted naval commander with extremely bad luck. In the previous book, Under Enemy Colors, he found himself serving aboard HMS Themis, a frigate with a tyrannical captain and a mutinous crew. Now in A Battle Won, instead of being allowed to take command of his own ship, Hayden is reassigned back to the Themis, a ship with such a bad reputation that no captain wants the command.Hayden is a “job-captain,” assigned to deliver the ship to Admiral Hood in the Mediterranean, where it is expected that a new captain will be assigned. Captain Hayden and the Themis are also ordered to help guard a convey of merchant ships across the Bay of Biscay in the winter, under the command of an incompetent convoy commander with a very low opinion of Hayden based solely on the poor reputation of the “mutiny ship” Themis. On the voyage, Hayden must deal with a ship’s parson set on undermining his command and a deadly influenza outbreak, in addition to winter gales, the incompetent convoy commander, and French cruisers out to attack the convoy.The real action begins when Hayden delivers the Themis to Hood, who temporarily leaves Hayden in the command of the frigate and then dispatches him on a mission to Corsica, where the British are helping the Corsicans drive out the French.What makes A Battle Won so absorbing is simply that Russell writes exceptionally well. It is easy to slip into and be enveloped by the book. The scenes, both on shipboard and in Corsica, are well researched and the characters consistently both vivid and believable. It is, to use the cliché, a real page-turner, and sets us up for the next book in the series where Captain Hayden must again overcome the unfairness and ill fortune that blocks the advancement that he so richly deserves.The only negative thing I can say about the book is also a positive, depending on your perspective. Captain Hayden and his exploits fit perfectly into the archetype of the historical naval fiction genre. He is a young and talented officer from a good background, yet held back by family history. He has more enemies than allies in the Admiralty yet ultimately rises in the rank through sheer ability. This brief bio applies to Charles Hayden, yet could also be applied to Jack Aubrey, Richard Bolitho, Horatio Hornblower and perhaps a score of others. What makes A Battle Won distinctive is Russell’s story telling. While reading the book, I felt at home, in comfortable surroundings. While the territory is familiar, it still seems fresh and original.My one recurring complaint with much of traditional naval fiction is that it can be chronically episodic. Russell succeeds in avoiding this in A Battle Won. The major sections of the book, separated by diverting intermissions, end up feeling all part of the whole. Very nicely done.A Battle Won will be savored by fans of historical naval fiction and will be a delight for those new to the genre. Highly recommended.