Fiskardo's War
4 total works
***LONGLISTED FOR THE HISTORICAL WRITERS' ASSOCIATION DEBUT CROWN 2022***
***'Excellent writing, intricate plotting and masterful senses of place and time make Harvey's books compulsive reads.' - Historia***
***'Superb storytelling. [...] Readers everywhere are in for a treat!' - Tracy Chevalier***
***'Multi-layered, compelling and intriguing, The Silver Wolf draws us into the murky underbelly of Europe's Thirty Years' War.' - Minette Walters***
***'[A] marvellous [...] intelligently written romp through history' - NB Magazine***
***With a huge cast of characters and great storytelling, this is epic, action-packed historical fiction.' - Choice***
The extraordinarily rich, dark, panoramic tale of an orphaned boy's quest for truth and then for vengeance as war rages across 17th-century Europe.
Amidst the chaos of the Thirty Years' War, Jack Fiskardo embarks upon a quest that will carry him inexorably from France to Amsterdam and then onto the battlefields of Germany. As he grows to manhood will he be able to unravel the mystery of his father's death? Or will his father's killers find him first?
The Silver Wolf is a tale of secrets and treachery and the relentlessness of fate - but it is also a story of courage and compassion, of love and loyalty and ultimately of salvation too.
Book One of Fiskardo's War marks the start of a series of unforgettable, epic historical fiction for readers of Ken Follett and Kate Mosse.
'Harvey handles a huge cast of characters and a mountain of research with enviable confidence, and gives us a gift of a hero. I am completely invested in Jack Fiskardo now, and will eagerly follow him through many more battles and beds, murders and mayhem, to reach his nemesis.' - Tracy Chevalier
'A powerfully impressive debut.' - Minette Walters
'A vivid, gripping story, beautifully handled, with a gem on every page' - Tracy Chevalier
'Once again J.C. Harvey has cleared the high bar in historical fiction by a mile.' - S. W. Perry
'Vibrant, twisting and compelling' - Minette Walters
Summer 1630. The Swedish army is fighting its way down through Germany, with Jack Fiskardo and his company of scouts, or 'discoverers', fighting the guerrilla war ahead of the main advance. There are new allies to be made, new perils to overcome, new enemies to outwit and new adventures to pursue; but there is also a fortune for the taking, a mystery to be solved, and a destiny to fulfil - one that will see Jack brought face-to-face at last with his sworn enemy, Carlo Fantom. And in the wintry forests of Bohemia, that destiny will present Jack with an almost impossible choice - does he pursue his final vengeance, or does he turn aside, to help a child as helpless as he once was himself?
How is a warrior to live his life, once all the wars are done?
Uppsala Province, Sweden, 1720: Magnus von Lindeborg, soldier, commander, champion; grandson of Jack Fiskardo's youthful high-born ensign, Karl-Christian von Lindeborg; a man of wealth, nobility, renown -
- and a battered spirit, and a lonely heart. A man who finds himself without a place in the country of his birth, and without purpose to his life; a man who sees himself fading into nothingness much like the ghostly painted warriors upon his castle's walls.
But Fate has other ideas . . .
A wonderful tale of love and the power of human redemption, and a compelling treat for fans of The Silver Wolf and The Dead Men.
When wounded, grieving war-hero Jack Fiskardo arrives in the London of 1639 from the battlefields of Europe, a veteran not just of conflict but of tragedy, his only wish is to make a life for himself and his two sons different to any he has known. But in an England on the verge of civil war, and a city full of bitter rivalries and deadly secrets, a soldier's past cannot be so easily forgotten.
As the country pulls itself apart there are battles to be fought of the heart and mind as much as on the battlefield, and with the reappearance of his first and deadliest foe, Jack is vulnerable in ways he never was before. Escaping who he was may be impossible - but saving those he loves will mean risking everything he has.