By the Mast Divided.

I have recently started the "Pearce Series". Certainly a different approach to Naval Fiction, which I,m finding fairly enjoyable. I bought three volumes at once so heres hoiping. The author seems to know his 19th century Navy and I enjoy his dialogue of the times. One puzzle however, and that relates to the ship, HMS Brilliant.

That"" Brilliant"" is a frigate we are left in no doubt, but can somebody enlighten me as to which Class of frigate she might be. We are told a couple of times the master's cuddy is adjacent the wheel. We are also told the Poop is a raised deck! In fact, the hero is flogged on a grating erected against the poop with the Captian and his Missus looking down! To try and uncover the mystery I referred to"' Gardiner"' who does not list a frigate with a raised poop. It's a small thing but it tends to play on the mind re authenticity and what questions lie in store.??!! Anyone asble to shed some light??

Wow! Good eye - i completely missed that one! I think that's a good question for the author if we can figure out how to contact him.

Through the publishing company would be the best bet, unless he has an official website.

I submitted the question here but it appears the last question was answered a year ago so I'm not too hopeful - it hasn't appeared on the page yet if that means anything.

Whilst many of the new authors are contactable via the internet some, usually those with titles going back a number of years, do not use it so have to be contacted via their publisher or publicist. David Donachie is one such.

Well, that is the website of the publisher, and the writer of the page "promises" to submit the questions to the authors, so ... I'm still not hopeful. But we'll see.

update - 21-Feb
I've just received a reply from the publisher website that my question has been forwarded to the author, so perhaps there is hope after all.