Navy Fiction

Today I am listing off 10 novels with links to the US Navy.  Enjoy!

At the Edge of Honor by Robert Macomber - The year is 1863. The Civil War is leaving its bloody trail across the nation as Peter Wake, born and bred in the snowy North, joins the U.S. Navy as a volunteer officer and arrives in steamy Florida for duty with the East Gulf Blockading Squadron. The idealistic Peter Wake has handled boats before, but he's new to the politics and illicit liaisons that war creates among men. Assigned to the Rosalie, a tiny, armed sloop, Captain Wake commands a group of seasoned seamen on a series of voyages to seek and arrest Confederate blockade-runners and sympathizers, from Florida's coastal waters through to near the remote out-islands of the Bahamas. Wake risks his reputation when he falls in love with Linda Donahue, whose father is a Confederate zealot, and steals away to spend precious hours with her at her Key West home. Their love is tested as Wake learns he must make the ugly decisions of war even in a beautiful, tropical paradise--decisions that take him up to the edge of honor.

Deep Sound Channel by Joe Buff - The year is 2011, and in South Africa a reactionary coup has established a military government that has begun sinking U.S. and British merchant ships. NATO quickly responds, with only Germany holding back-until Germany starts nuking Poland and eviscerating the French. Now the South Atlantic is a battleground where nuclear-tipped missiles rule-and the only gun worth using is one that seeks and fires from deep beneath the sea. In response, Lieutenant Commander Jeffrey Fuller and the crew of the nuclear submarine USS Challenger are called in to help. Ceramic-hulled and designed for maximum stealth, the Challenger is being sent to South Africa for a mission critical to stopping the war. Together with a team of Navy SEALs and assisted by Boer freedom fighter Ilse Reebeck, Commander Fuller must infiltrate the enemy coast and attack a compound where scientists are putting together the ultimate biological weapon-a violent, deadly microbe that has the potential to wreak global devastation.

Hover by Anne Wilson - Helicopter pilot Sara Denning joins an all-male navy battle group with little fanfare--and that's just the way she likes it. Her philosophy is simple--blend in, be competent, and above all, never do anything to stand out as a woman. But somewhere along the way, she lost herself--her feminine, easy-going soul now buried under so many defensive layers, she can't reach it anymore.  When she meets the strong, self-assured Lieutenant Eric Marxen, those defenses start to falter. He coordinates flight operations for SEAL Team One and they begin to request Sara exclusively as the pilot for their training exercises. The end mission is so secret, even she doesn't know the reason behind her mandated participation. With her career on the line she is able to compartmentalize her feelings, but when her life is on the line, can she follow the orders of her heart?

Hunter Killer by George Wallace - Below the polar ice cap, an American nuclear submarine moves quietly in the freezing water, tailing a new Russian sub. But the usual, unspoken game of hide-and-seek between opposing captains is ended when the Americans hear sounds of disaster and flooding, and the Russian sub sinks in a thousand feet of water. The American sub rushes to help, only to join its former quarry in the deep. The situation ignites tensions around the world. As both Washington and Moscow prepare for what may be the beginnings of World War III, the USS Toledo--led by young, untested Captain Joe Glass--heads to the location to give aid. He soon discovers that the incident was no accident. And the men behind it have yet to make their final move. A move only Glass can stop.

One-Way Trip by Scott McEwen - When the special ops community learns that one of their own -- the first female helicopter pilot of the Army's elite 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (SOAR) -- is being held and brutally mistreated, there is no executive order strong enough to stop them. Gil Shannon's iron will and expertise with the .308 Remington Modular sniper rifle will spell the difference between freedom and an ignoble death for America's female POW.

Pacific Glory by Peter Deutermann - Marsh, Mick, and Tommy were inseparable friends during their naval academy years, each man desperately in love with the beautiful, unattainable Glory Hawthorne. Graduation set them on separate paths into the military, but they were all forever changed during the Pearl Harbor attack on December 7, 1941.  Glory, now Tommy's widow, is a tough Navy nurse still grieving her loss while trying to save lives. Marsh, a surface ship officer, finds himself in the thick of terrifying sea combat from Guadalcanal through Midway to a climactic showdown at Leyte Gulf. And Mick, a hotshot fighter pilot with a drinking problem and a chip on his shoulder, seeks redemption after a series of failures leaves him grounded.

Rule of Law by Randy Singer - For the members of SEAL Team Six, it was a rare mission ordered by the president, monitored in real time from the Situation Room. The Houthi rebels in Yemen had captured an American journalist and a member of the Saudi royal family. Their executions were scheduled for Easter Sunday. The SEAL team would break them out. But when the mission results in spectacular failure, the finger-pointing goes all the way to the top. Did the president play political games with the lives of U.S. service members? Paige Chambers, a determined young lawyer, has a very personal reason for wanting to know the answer. The case she files will polarize the nation and test the resiliency of the Constitution. The stakes are huge, the alliances shaky, and she will be left to wonder if the saying on the Supreme Court building still holds true. Equal justice under law. It makes a nice motto. But will it work when one of the most powerful people on the planet is also a defendant?

The Sea Before Us by Sarah Sundin - In 1944, American naval officer Lt. Wyatt Paxton arrives in London to prepare for the Allied invasion of France. He works closely with Dorothy Fairfax, a "Wren" in the Women's Royal Naval Service. Dorothy pieces together reconnaissance photographs with thousands of holiday snapshots of France--including those of her own family's summer home--in order to create accurate maps of Normandy. Maps that Wyatt will turn into naval bombardment plans. As the two spend concentrated time together in the pressure cooker of war, their deepening friendship threatens to turn to love. Dorothy must resist its pull. Her bereaved father depends on her, and her heart already belongs to another man. Wyatt too has much to lose. The closer he gets to Dorothy, the more he fears his efforts to win the war will destroy everything she has ever loved.

The Terminal List by Jack Carr - On his last combat deployment, Lieutenant Commander James Reece's entire Navy SEAL team was killed in a catastrophic ambush that also claimed the lives of the aircrew sent in to rescue them. But when those dearest to him are murdered on the day of his homecoming, Reece discovers that this was not an act of war by a foreign enemy but a conspiracy that runs to the highest levels of government. Now, with no family and free from the military's command structure, Reece applies the lessons that he's learned in over a decade of constant warfare toward avenging the deaths of his family and teammates.

The Trident Deception by Rick Campbell - The USS Kentucky--a Trident ballistic missile submarine carrying a full complement of 192 nuclear warheads--is about to go on a routine cruise. Not long after it reaches the open sea, however, the Kentucky receives a launch order. After receiving that launch order, it is cut off from all counter-orders and disappears into the Pacific while it makes the eight-day transit to the launch site. What the Kentucky's crew doesn't know is that those launch orders haven't actually come from the U.S. government. Rogue elements within the Mossad have learned that Iran has developed its first nuclear weapon and, in ten days, will detonate it--and the target is Israel. The suspected weapon complex is too far underground for conventional weapons to harm it, and the only choice is a pre-emptive nuclear strike. With limited time, this rogue group initiates a long-planned operation called the Trident Deception. They'll transmit false orders and use a U.S. nuclear submarine to launch the attack. With only 8 days before the Kentucky is in launch range and with the submarine cut off from any outside communication, one senior officer, the father of one of the officers aboard the submarine, must assemble and lead a team of attack submarines to find, intercept and neutralize the Kentucky before it can unknowingly unleash a devastating nuclear attack.