About

My name is Antoine Vanner and I write naval fiction set in the period 1859 to 1918. As such I'm dealing with a period of very rapid technological and political development, one in which "The Age of Fighting Sail" evolved somewhat painfully into "The Age of Fighting Steam".

The hero of my fiction is an ambitious Royal Navy officer, Nicholas Dawlish (1845-1918). For me he's a real person whose life I am continuing to research in ever greater detail and you can find a sort summary of his life on the following link: A Life of Service and Adventure

The overall title of the series is "The Dawlish Chronicles" and the first of the novels in the sequence is "Britannia's Wolf", published in April 2013, and which covers Dawlish's secondment to the Ottoman Navy during the brutal final stages of the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78. This conflict had the potential to expand into a war that could involve all the European powers. It could indeed have brought the outbreak of World War 1 forward by almost four decades. British strategic interests were at stake but there was reluctance to commit military forces until it would be absolutely unavoidable. There was however no hesitation by the British Government to committing British advisers and secondees - like Nicholas Dawlish.

In "Britannia's Wolf", in the depths of a savage winter, and as Ottoman-Turkish forces face defeat on all fronts, Dawlish must ravage Russian supply lines in the Black Sea and must face enemy ironclads, Cossack lances and merciless Kurdish irregulars. But he also finds himself a pawn in the rivalry between the Sultan's half-brothers for control of a collapsing empire. And in the midst of chaos, unwillingly and unexpectedly, Dawlish finds himself drawn to a woman he believes he cannot allow himself to love, not for is sake, and not for hers.

"Britannia's Wolf" is available in paperback and in Kindle: click here if you're in the US or Canada and click here if you're in the UK or Europe.

"Britannia's Reach" the second of the Dawlish Chronicles has been published in early 2014.  It follows the first novel chronologically:

1880 and on a broad river deep in the heart of South America, a flotilla of paddle steamers thrashes slowly upstream. Laden with troops, horses and artillery, intent on conquest and revenge.  

Ahead lies a commercial empire that was wrested from a British consortium in a bloody revolution. Now the investors are determined to recoup their losses and are funding a vicious war to do so.

Nicholas Dawlish, an ambitious British naval officer, is playing a leading role in the expedition.  But as brutal land and river battles mark its progress upriver, and as both sides inflict and endure ever greater suffering, stalemate threatens.

And Dawlish finds himself forced to make a terrible ethical choice if he is to return to Britain with some shreds of integrity remaining…

"Britannia's Reach" is available in paperback and in Kindle: click here if you're in the US or Canada and click here if you're in the UK or Europe.

A final point: you may like to know more about me. If so you can read an interview with me, or hear me being interviewed by novelist Seymour Hamilton if you click here.

 I hope you'll find my articles of interest. You may also like my website www.dawlishchronicles.com of interest, as it addresses many other issues surrounding the period in which the novels are set. 

You are also cordially requested to "like" the Dawlish Chronicles page on Facebook, which contains sorter posts relevant to the period, its politics and its technology