Sea of Troubles (Nicholas Talbot Adventures) (Great Lie Trilogy)

Nick Talbot is heartbroken after his family home burned to the ground and the love of his life married another. In five short years he has gone from callow youth to courier-at-large for the Queen and country. But more than all this, his passion for the stage has made him the progenitor of the theatre’s greatest-ever conspiracy. Tucked away in Verona, Kit Marlowe—according to history, a dead man who was killed in a tavern brawl—continues to write his wondrous plays. Back in London they are put on under the name of Will Shakespeare, a travesty, but yet they are staged and the applause comes. To live without writing would be worse than death and hence in spiriting his plays away to London, Nick is Kit’s savior. A youth no longer, Nick is a father with responsibilities to many: spymaster Robert Cecil, his courier colleagues, his family and household, and above all Kit. In this second outing, the adventurer matures and begins to look for more in life than transient thrills. His ability to find trouble, however, is unerring and he won’t always prevail.

Myrrha Stanford-Smith studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and worked in professional theatre and as a teacher before retiring to the Isle of Anglesey, where she founded the Ucheldre Repertory Company. She is the author of Flights of Angels and Great Lie.