With their mother, father, and uncles already nursing wounds from previous rebellions, Mattie and his brother, Tadgh, are no strangers to Irish struggle against the British crown. Only when the brothers are torn from their own home do they realize just how bloody complicated the Wars of the Three Kingdoms truly are.
With England, Ireland, and Scotland about to be locked into a decade of conflict, dying in battle is somehow still the least of Mattie's worries. Whether it's enslavement in the tropics, the navigating of an unforgiving sea, or horrific tribal conflict in faraway lands, Mattie will not only learn the global reach of the war from his homeland but also get a chance to discover liberty-and love-in the unlikeliest of places.
From devastated Irish farms to a vast Barbados plantation and beyond, this sprawling epic takes readers through the riotous depths of seventeenth-century Irish history, revealing the often brutal but sometimes inspiring truths that no history textbook ever could.
Battles will be lost. Loyalties will be tested. Love will be challenged. In the desperate fight to determine who will rule Ireland, Mattie's final fate may take him further from home than he ever could have imagined.
About the Author: In a former life, Fred Ruark was a management and communications consultant for various industries. But ever since he was young, he has had an endless appetite for knowledge about his own Irish history and culture, as well as those of the many Native American tribes that once occupied North America.
Now retired, he has time to dedicate to another lifetime passion: writing. His extensive research into Ireland's history has culminated in the completion of his first historical novel, The Saints Lost Their Way.
He holds both a BS and an MS from Johns Hopkins University and currently lives in beautiful southern Maryland.
