​

​Welcome...
...to the website of James L. Nelson, award-winning author of historical maritime fiction and nonfiction. On this page, you'll find the latest books and projects; for more information on upcoming lectures and such, please visit the Author Events page. To learn more about the author himself, see our About the Author page.
For announcements of new releases and the very occasional newsletter with sample chapters, short stories and other good stuff cheap, please subscribe to James L. Nelson's e-mail list:
The Buccaneer Coast

BOOK I OF BLOOD, STEEL, AND EMPIRE
1629. The West Indies are held in Spain’s iron fist, and no challenge to that absolute rule is tolerated. But one threat will emerge as the most dangerous of all: the buccaneers.
 
Camped on the shore of Hispaniola, these half-wild men eke out a living hunting the island’s feral livestock. Among them, Jean-Baptiste LeBoeuf — hulking, silent, deadly with musket and blade — lives out his exile, content that no one in the hunters’ camp is at all curious about his past. But when a deadly hurricane sweeps through the Caribbean, it leaves in its wake opportunity, a chance for a new life for LeBoeuf and his fellow hunters. This stroke of luck, however, is not all it seems, and when even greater violence is visited upon them they find themselves locked in battle with some of the most powerful and ruthless men in the Spanish Empire.
"[Nelson] writes with such clarity and conviction... follow the action and be gripped
​by it...."
– Allan Massie, The Wall Street Journal

The Midgard Serpent
BOOK X OF THE NORSEMEN SAGA
Available Now!

Thorgrim Night Wolf, now somewhere on the south coast of Engla-land, may be closer to his goal of returning home than he has been since reaching Ireland years before, but he is still very, very far away. His son Harald, however, has ambitions beyond just getting home. Given command of one of the ships in the fleet, Harald sees a chance to put his courage on display, unleashing consequences that will lead Thorgrim into a fight against the powerful armies of Wessex, a fight he does not want.
​
As Thorgrim struggles to keep his men alive, his eldest son Odd leads the resistance to King Halfdan’s ruthless attempts to expand his rule over Norway. When a plan to bring Halfdan to heel goes terribly wrong, Odd alone is taken prisoner, and brutally punished as an example to those who would defy their king. But Halfdan’s brutality does not cow the freemen: rather it stokes their anger into a red-hot rage that only freeing Odd and extracting further vengeance can cool.
"Nelson's Viking Sagas are a tour de force of tautly crafted twists, turns full of authentic detail, and plots that drive you to the finish!"
 – Dewey Lambdin, author of the Alan Lewrie Naval Adventures
HOME              THE NORSEMEN SAGA               FICTION               NONFICTION               CONTACT