L K Samuels

Ferret L K Samuels

Can the powerful ever resist power? A boy king is born in British-occupied Ireland in the late 1600s. He is heir to the Irish throne of the Celtic High Kings from before the Roman Republic. But Ferret O'Neil has been taught by his schoolmaster, a former backer of Lord Cromwell, that all rulership is evil and corrupted. Ferret disowns his royal heritage. But despite his reluctance to get involved in political struggles, Ferret, barely out of his teens, destroys an English Man-of-War. He is elected captain of a 500-ton merchantman, and flees with other colonists to the Netherlands. In the Netherlands, Ferret rises to second in command of a Dutch-Irish community that seeks to build a fleet of ships to escape the old world. After many years of hardship, the colony finally sets sail across the Atlantic to establish an independent Irish nation, free from European influences. But the old world dogs the new. The British threaten to invade the thriving colony of New Eire from the north. Spanish military leaders to the south plot to undermine Ferret's authority. Savages from the Yamasee tribe raid white settlements from the interior. Ferret's traitorous cousin attempts a military coup to gain control of the colony. In order to cement an alliance with the Spanish in Florida, the Irish clergy demands that Ferret become king. Reluctantly Ferret accepts the crown and prepares his nation for war with the English, Indians and insurgents. He imprisons dissidents, constructs a fortress, assembles an army, and becomes the tyrant he feared he was destined to become.