Five Young Men of the Fenlands Books in Order

Five Young Men of the Fenlands begins in Tatham, a small village in the Cambridgeshire Fens. The local squire has five healthy sons and not enough estate to provide properly for all of them. That one family problem sends the whole story outward.

Each son is pushed toward a different future. The eldest should be the heir, but does not behave as expected. The second is pointed at the Church and dislikes the prospect. Another wants the sea. Another is packed off to the Militia. Young Caius is sent to India, aged sixteen, to join his uncle as a country merchant.

The family scatters.

Wareham uses the brothers to show how limited choices at home could become dangerous opportunities abroad. India, the Sugar Islands, the Militia, the Church, seafaring, captivity, trade, and war all become possible routes away from a small Fenland estate. None is safe. Some are profitable.

The second book, Perilous Shores, shows the brothers trying to recover from the family split. Marcus is blown into French service and then English captivity in Antigua. Caius and Felix make their way in India and nearby hills. Reverend Aurelius remains in the Fenlands, pulling the family property and village decorum into shape.

The series has a broad, branching feel despite its short length. It is about how younger sons are disposed of, how families survive by sending people away, and how the Empire turns unwanted sons into soldiers, traders, sailors, and sometimes survivors. Read Cast Upon The Waters first, then Perilous Shores. The two books belong together, because the opening dispersal is what gives the second book its tension.