The summer of 1795 finds English soldiers disembarking at Quiberon Bay in Brittany. The expedition – a joint venture with French royalists – is an attempt to regain control of France and place the imprisoned boy king Louis XVII on the throne. Accompanying the expeditionary force is Lord Edward “Ned” Wilden, who is also a lord of the Admiralty and less widely known, a spymaster for the prime minister. Neither believes this venture will be successful. There is too much infighting between the royalist factions. The emigrés look upon the Chouans and Vendéeans with disdain, even though these men of varying social ranks have remained in France to fight the republicans, while the former fled their homeland. Ned’s job is to keep peace among these factions, a thankless job that he would far rather be someone else’s.

Leonore Kermorvant, the widow of a royalist martyr whom she betrayed to the republicans, questions where she stands with her brother-in-law. There is an attraction between the two, but there also is an unbridgeable gulf that neither seems willing to cross. Perhaps this is one reason she dares to violate all that she believes in to provide succor to a wounded royalist colonel.

Philippe Kermorvant, Vicomte de Saint-Victor, is livid when he discovers the intruder in his home, but the colonel’s contingency plans find Philippe the prisoner instead of the royalist. It is only Leonore who can save him, but her actions have opened a wider chasm and once free, he immediately goes to sea. Since his requests for a new ship fall on deaf ears within the Marine Nationale, he grudgingly accepts a privateer’s commission from a Swiss merchant and his son. Philippe has misgivings but needs the funds to repair his chateau. With a comrade from his old crew joining in this voyage, he sets aside that niggling worry. Only to have it roar back to life when secret orders are revealed after they set sail.

Davies has a knack for taking disparate threads and twining them together to create a riveting tale that is adroitly brought together in unexpected ways that eventually make perfect sense. At the same time, the characters and the situations they face elicit emotions that readers readily understand and identify with. Normally, Lord Wilden is portrayed more as the villain in the Philippe Kermorvant Thrillers, but in this third title in the series he is a likeable character who comes across in ways that make him very human. It is the introduction of a new, young character that deftly makes this humanizing poignant and real, while at the same time bringing the realities of war front and center. Of the three books so far, The Cursed Shore is the best and Davies does a laudable job in making a highly complex event easy to comprehend.

-- Cindy Vallar, Editor of Pirates and Privateers
Review found online here: http://www.cindyvallar.com/JDDavies.html#cursed