Mediterranean Madness (book 3 of 9 of the Rundel Series)

by N. Beetham Stark

Overview

This novel is set during the Napoleonic Wars. Benjamin Rundel fights in the Battle of Cape St. Vincent after a nerve-wracking sail through the French fleet in the fog. He suffers at the hands of a loud Italian lady whom he has been sent to rescue from her French paramours. Her children nearly drive his entire crew crazy. He is there when Commodore Horatio Nelson loses his right arm in battle at Tenerife and later becomes his scribe. He and his crew are captured when their ship is driven ashore during a severe storm. He manages to get them out of the prison and back to their original ship. When his captain panics at the Battle of Camperdown, as first Leftenant, Ben is forced to take over the ship. He fears a court martial and charges of mutiny. Fortunately he is exonerated. Then the captain’s influential family gets him assigned to a mutinous ship. He escapes and survives hardships in the jungle but lives to fight at the Battle of Aboukir Bay. Ben learns about the nobility and politics of Naples during his long stay there with Lord Nelson. The Admiralty sends him off to Egypt to contact two missing informants, but he fails to find them. The explosion of the giant ship, L’Orient, during the Battle of the Nile must have been a spectacle that could never be forgotten for its magnificence and horror.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940045426794
Publisher:	N. Beetham Stark
Publication date:	10/25/2013
Sold by:	Smashwords
Format:	eBook
File size:	727 KB

About the Author

Nellie Beetham Stark was born November 20, 1933, in Norwich, Connecticut to Theodore and Dorothy Pendleton Beetham. She attended the Norwich Free Academy and later Connecticut College in New London, CT before graduating with a MA and a Ph.D. degree in Botany (Ecology) from Duke University.

Stark worked for the U.S. Forest Service as a botanist for six years and then joined the Desert Research Institute in Reno, Nevada where she worked on desert and forest ecology and later tropical nutrient cycling. She has consulted in many countries, working for some time in Russia, Australia and South America. She developed the theory that explains why tropical white sand soils cannot grow good food crops and described the decline processes of soils. She has also developed a science of surethology, or survival behavior which describes how humans must adapt to their environments if they hope to survive long term. She has 96 professional publications and has published in four languages.

Her life long hobby has been English history, with emphasis on naval history. Her family came originally from Tristan Da Cunha in the South Atlantic in the early 1900’s. Her grandfather was a whale ship captain for a time which spurred her interest in naval history. She also paints pictures of sailing ships which she has used as covers for her historical novels. She has built several scale models of sailing ships and does extensive research on ships and naval history, traveling to England once yearly.

Stark was awarded the Connecticut Medal by Connecticut College in 1986 and the Distinguished Native Daughter Award for South Eastern Connecticut in 1985. She was named outstanding Forestry Professor three times by the students of the University of Montana, School of Forestry.

Today she writes historical novels, mostly set in England. She has published some 21 novels in the past twenty years, mostly on the internet. She lives on a farm in Oregon and raises hay and cows.

Stark's two most popular book series are:

Early Irish-English History
1. The Twins of Torsh, 44 A.D. to 90 A.D.
1. Rolf "The Red" MacCanna, 796-846
2. An Irishman's Revenge, 1066-1112
4. Brothers 4, 1180-1216
5. Edward's Right Hand, 1272-1307
6. We Three Kings, 1377-1422

The Napoleonic Wars at Sea (Benjamin Rundel)
1. Humble Launching - A Story of a Little Boy Growing Up at Sea, 1787
2. Midshipman Rundel - The Wandering Midshipman, 1795
3. Mediterranean Madness - The Luckless Leftenant Rundel, 1797
4. The Adventures of Leftenant Rundel, 1797-1799
5. Forever Leftenant Rundel, 1800-1803
6. Captain Rundel I – Trafalgar and Beyond, 1803-1806
7. Captain Rundel II – Give Me a Fair Wind, 1806-1809
8. Captain Rundel III – Bend Me a Sail, 1810-1813
9. Admiral Rundel – 1814-1846