May, 1810 – and thirty-nine-year-old Captain Horatio Hornblower has been handed his first ship of the line … Though the seventy-four-gun HMS Sutherland is ‘the ugliest and least desirable two-decker in the Navy’ and a crew shortage means he must recruit two hundred and fifty landlubbers, Hornblower knows that by the time Sutherland and her squadron reach the blockaded Catalonian coast every seaman... goodreads.com