Catherine Knox

Prestige, wealth and beauty comes to only a few. Catherine Knox had it all. Daughter of Admiral Knox; 1st Admiral to His Majesties Royal Navy and the Hand of the King to King George III. Catherine holds no title, but can walk the halls of Windsor Castle as if it were her home, and King George and Queen Charlotte her step-parents - for it was they who oversaw her adolescent years, while her father back then, was just a captain. Queen Charlotte seizes upon an opportunity to push Catherine and Thomas Payne, a handsome British captain together. Disgruntled by this sly maneuver by the queen, her father can only sit idly by and watch their romance blossom between the young couple. With France and Britain saber rattle once again, Thomas is order to take his ship, the HMS York to the Pacific to duel with the French Fleet. Caught unaware by a much larger French warship, Thomas sails the York straight into the jaws of an angry sea; a wicked typhoon - hoping the French warship will not follow. It does.... The battle is fears and quickly over. With three rounds from the mighty French guns, crippling the York, Captain Leopold orders his ship to swing about for safer waters. As he looked back at the York on fire and listing over a thunderous wave, the ocean seemed to come alive and swallow the ship. He never saw it again. The Royal Navy searches for weeks afterwards and find nothing of the York. When this heart-wrenching news reaches King George, Catherine's world sinks as well. Within her dreams, however, she hears Thomas calling out to her. Believing he is still alive, she secretly hires a washed-out, drunken naval captain, Richard Flynn and his vagabond crew, to sail her to the South Pacific to find Thomas. -------------------------------- This story is not for the weak at heart. What Catherine and the crew of the Lara May endure on a voyage across three oceans is beyond imagination; beyond any seafaring man's dreams, or should I say - nightmares.