The Invasion Year is the seventeenth tale in Dewey Lambdin's smashing naval adventure series. For a fellow like Captain Alan Lewrie, Royal Navy, who despises the French worse than the Devil hates Holy Water, it's hellish-hard to gain a reputation for saving them, not once but twice, when the French refugees from Haiti surrender to England rather than the vengeful ex-slave armies in November of 1803! After that, it could be "all claret and cruising" in the Caribbean, but for a home-bound sugar convoy, one so frustrating as to make even the happy-go-lucky Alan Lewrie tear his hair out, kick furniture, and curse like . . . well, like a sailor! Back in England for the first time in two years, there are honors from the Crown for gallant service . . . a lot more than he expected from King George III, who was having a bad morning, then a chance to move in Society after an introduction to an intriguing daughter of a peer. But then come secret orders to experiment with several types of "infernal engines of war," which might delay or postpone the dreaded cross-Channel invasion by Napoleon Bonaparte, his huge army, and his thousands of invasion craft. For the rest of 1804, Alan Lewrie and his crew of the Reliant frigate will deal with things more dangerous to them than they may prove to be to the French! Praise for THE INVASION YEAR:  "Newcomers to the series will delight in Lambdin’s expert deployment of period detail; his mastery of the details of life on a 19th-century frigate; and the irresistible Captain Alan Lewrie himself. A pleasant blend of light humor, drama and cracking historical naval action."-- Kirkus Reviews "You might say Dewey Lambdin is in a groove." --HistoryWire.com  Praise for the Alan Lewrie Series:  “Stunning naval adventure, reeking of powder and mayhem. I wish I had written this series.”--Bernard Cornwell  "If Horatio Hornblower is the gentleman's sailor and Jack Aubrey is the thinking man's sailor, Lewrie is of and for the working class. Pugnacious and randy, he's a refreshing sea breeze."-- San Jose Mercury News "[A] smashing series."-- The Washington Times “Readers who haven’t yet sampled Lewrie’s adventures need only know that comparisons to Forester and O’Brian are entirely appropriate."-- Booklist “You could get addicted to this series. Easily.”-- The New York Times Book Review “The brilliantly stylish American master of salty-tongued British naval tales.”-- Kirkus Reviews “The best naval adventure series since C. S. Forester.”-- Library Journal “Lewrie is a marvelous creation, resourceful and bold.”--James L. Nelson, author of the Revolution at Sea Saga DEWEY LAMBDIN is the author of sixteen previous Alan Lewrie novels. A member of the U.S. Naval Institute and a Friend of the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, England, he spends his free time working and sailing. He makes his home in Nashville, TN, but would much prefer Margaritaville or Murrells Inlet. CHAPTER ONE   “Damme, but I do despise the bloody French!” “Understandably, sir,” the First Lieutenant softly agreed. “Their bloody general, Rochambeau,” Captain Alan Lewrie, RN, further gravelled, “he’d surrender t’that murderous General Dessalines and his Black rebel army, but he’s too damned proud t’strike to us ?” “Well, Dessalines did give them ten days’ truce to make an orderly exit, sir,” Lt. Westcott pointed out. “Else, it would have been a massacre. Another, really.” “If they don’t come out and surrender to us, soon, it’ll be all ‘Frogs Legs Flambé, ’ and Dessalines’ truce be-damned,” Captain Lewrie said with a mirthless laugh as he extended his telescope to its full length for another peek into the harbour of Cap François … and at the ships anchored inside, on which the French now huddled, driven from the last fingernail grasp of their West Indies colony. Evidently, the Black victors of the long, savage insurrection were getting anxious over when the French would depart, too, for those solid stone forts which had guarded the port from sea assault showed thin skeins of smoke, rising not from cook-fires but from forges where iron shot could be heated red-hot, amber-hot, to set afire those ships and all the beaten French survivors aboard them—soldiers, civilians, sailors, women, and children. Root and branch, damn their eyes, Lewrie thought; burn ’em all, root and branch! He lowered his glass and grimaced as he turned to face his First Officer, Lt. Geoffrey Westcott. “Is it askin’ too much, d’ye imagine, sir, that the Frogs could face facts? Which is the greater failure or shame … admittin’ the rebel slaves beat ’em like a rug, and surrenderin’ t’them … or strikin’ to a civilised foe, like us? They’ve done the first, so … what matters the second?” “Perhaps it’s the matter of Commodore Loring’s terms, sir,” Lt. Westcott supplied, inclining his head towards their senior officer’s flagship, idling under reduced sail further out to seaward. “He will not let them dis-arm and sail for France on their parole.” “Be a fool