The Civil War Chronicles

Autumn 1630. Long before England tears itself apart, Innocent Stryker fights as a scarred mercenary on the continent. This is the story of his early years, the brutal battles that forged him, and the fateful events that would shape the man who returned home in 1642.

The year is 1642. England is bleeding. King and Parliament have plunged the country into civil war, and no road is safe.

Captain Stryker didn't return home out of loyalty to a king. He came back to face his enemy: Captain Eli Makepeace — the man who left him scarred and hardened. But vengeance must wait. Prince Rupert has a mission: hunt down a spy deep inside the Royalist cause — before it's too late.

It's 1643 and England stands divided: King against Parliament, town against country, brother against brother. For Captain Stryker, the rights and wrongs mean little — his loyalty is to his men, and to Lisette Gaillard, Queen Henrietta's deadly agent who has vanished with a man holding the key to Royalist victory.

Prince Rupert sends Stryker to find her. But false imprisonment, a doomed siege, and a fanatical assassin stand in his way — all while Parliament tightens its grip around Lichfield.

— A Sunday Times Historical Fiction Book of the Year

The war rages through the southwest. Stryker finds himself the hunted, pursued across bitter, contested lands by enemies old and new. As Royalist and Parliamentarian forces clash in a brutal campaign, a devastating betrayal sends him into the most dangerous mission of his career — one that will test his skill, his loyalty, and his very survival.

King Charles's forces are victorious — Bristol has fallen — and Royalist eyes turn to Gloucester. Stryker is sent to infiltrate the city and discover if its governor will surrender. But Gloucester's defenders are resolute, and catastrophe strikes.

Spared by his former commander — now fighting for Parliament — Stryker begins to question his loyalties. Yet a hidden menace threatens not just his life, but the King's itself.

Stryker leaves Oxford with orders to recover a lost treasure vital to the Royalist war effort. The trail leads to the remote Scilly Isles, where a formidable Parliamentarian agent — a man consumed by hatred for Stryker — has been sent to destroy the plan.

The quest carries Stryker across storm-ravaged seas, through enemy territory, and finally to Basing House — the besieged stronghold where he will face his most deadly challenge yet.

2 July 1644. Five armies — forty-six thousand men — converge outside York. The largest battle of the age. Two great leaders: Prince Rupert and Oliver Cromwell, face to face.

Now Major Stryker prepares for the field. Amid the smoke and slaughter of Marston Moor, he must fight not just for his cause, but for his own survival — and the fate of three kingdoms hangs in the balance.

Late Summer, 1644. The king's cause in the north has been shattered and the pivotal city of York has fallen. But for Major Stryker, captured amid the bloody carnage of Marston Moor, the war is at an end — confined within London's Clink Prison, where survival itself is a battle.