Wager

"[Woodman] has quietly stolen the weather gauge from most of his rivals in the Hornblower stakes." - Observer "Brilliantly told, the story catches every nuance...A convincing and compulsive seafaring story." - Oxford Times Wrenched by tragedy from a peaceful and respectable middle-class home in Victorian London, Hannah Kemball finds herself accompanying her father, Captain 'Cracker Jack' Kemball, aboard the tea-clipper 'Erl King' on a voyage to China. In Shanghai and Foochow, the crack British tea-clippers are loading the season's tea, preparing for the annual race to bring their valuable cargoes to the London market. Unfortunately for Hannah, only one thing matters to the iron-willed captains about to pit their skills against the perils of three oceans: to be the first to make it home. Overconfident of victory, Captain Kemball strikes a wager with the sinister Captain Richards of the 'Seawitch'. The stakes: Hannah's hand in marriage. As the fastest sailing vessels ever built storm across the world's oceans, Hannah learns thath this a race with no rules, and that murder, mayhem and deceit are all part of the game.