Blood Brothers: A Novel of Courage and Treachery On the Shores of Tripoli Paperback - 2011

My wife JoAnn and I have been restoring our 1730's house for 25 years. What madness! I decided I needed a break from crumbly old plaster and hopelessly crooked walls and ceilings. Why not write the historical novel that has been simmering inside me since I was 10 years old, I thought? So I did. My passion for historical novels started with Kenneth Roberts' Lydia Bailey, and has evolved over the years into a joyful addiction. My love of sailing started about the same time. I have planned this book as the first in a series of novels that will unfold the lives of the two main characters and the women they love. Later novels will depict Henry Doyle's fight to save his adopted Iroquois nation and his early career as a spy, Peter's involvement in the War of 1812, and in the last novel, The Most Bold and Daring Act of the Age, the final successful suppression of the Barbary pirates in 1815, in which Peter rescues Henry from his Algerian captors. I have a M.A. in American Literature from the Bread Loaf School of English, and a Ph.D. from Princeton University in Renaissance and 18th Century studies. My family includes daughters Mary Behr, Jennifer Behr Wilson and her husband Jordan Wilson, and two grandchildren, Maggie Grace Wilson and Finn Thomas Wilson.