The Carter saga is a fiction series I am drawing up about the life and times of Peter Clarke Carter, an English naval officer during the Napoleonic Wars. There are about nine stories I have in the works, each covering one year from 1805 up to 1814..

The difficulties that Peter has in his naval career are only exacerbated by the complications in his personal life. He has a long standing enemy in Charles Thancery, an officer he crossed in his lieutenant days. He always has to sort out the myriad misadventures of his siblings Philip and Gabrielle, as well as of his friends Andrew Mcdaughtery, James Goldberg, and Icarus Maused. He acquires a stubborn protege, Dan Meyers. However his most tangled issue is this: he is in love with his best friend, Julia--who happens to get married off before he can make a move.

The stories in the Carter Saga are arranged as thus:

1. The Gardner Command: The mission that started it all: how Peter and Charles came to be at odds, how the HMS Pallas suffered a mutiny, and how Peter realized a little too late that he had fallen for Julia Hamilton.

2. Running the Gauntlet: In which Peter finds himself the subject of a wager in the Meditteranean command, as well as the mediator in Andrew Mcdaughtery's personal life.

3. Captain Carter: Peter's first command takes him to the West Indies, where he finds himself saddled with two bickering midshipmen and a death threat--that may not be all that it seems.

4. Unforgettable Shipmates: Peter has to rendezvous with Captain Birmingham in South America. Julia Birmingham (nee Hamilton), and two Mcdaughterys come along for what promises to be a voyage that could make or break their little band.

5. Flying the Pennant: The Toulon mission holds more for Peter: intrigue, the danger posed by a French ship the Niobe, a prospect in Seniorita Soledad Tordesillas, a fright concerning his sister Gabrielle, and a revelation about Captain Birmingham's personal life.

6. Striking the Topgallants: In the aftermath, Captain Birmingham is suddenly murdered. Charles implicates Peter on the basis of the latter's former attachment to Julia. Peter fights to clear his name, come clean to Julia, as well as frustrate a French captain wrecking havoc in the fleet.

7. A Duel of the Great Guns: Spies endanger vital operations in the Peninsular War. Peter teams up with his old friends to ferret out the spies, as well as to discover the true legacy of the Hamilton and the Carter families.

8. The Orient Pearls: War breaks out with America. Peter struggles to keep some vital treasure from falling into the American navy's hands, all the while getting around to finally courting Julia.

9. An Ignominy of Names: While awaiting a promotion, Peter is dispatched again to the Indies, where they must reform a decrepit squadron.

10. From Lapel to Flag: Admiral Carter's shore leave is rudely interrupted by a perilous mission to the continent to stop the mobilization of Napoleon's troops.

Tags: author's notes, plot