Kennett's Campaigns Books in Order

Kennett's Campaigns moves into the French Revolutionary War and follows Gregory Kennett, a young officer who enters the army for personal reasons and quickly learns that service is rougher, stranger, and more political than he expected.

The first book, Fighting for the King, starts with a shock. After revolutionaries execute his friend Alan, Gregory buys a commission in the 136th Foot and heads into a campaign made up of marches, sieges, skirmishes, and uncertainty. He is not stepping into a polished machine. He is stepping into confusion, harsh weather, suspect motives, and a regiment that may be marked for trouble.

That gives the series a useful tone. Gregory is learning on the move, and the reader learns with him. He has to judge officers, protect himself, and figure out which dangers are coming from the enemy and which are coming from inside his own side. The second novel, Soldier and Sailor Too, adds espionage to the mix when Gregory is recruited to uncover a French agent and finds the threat stretching from the Caribbean to unrest in the fleet.

So this series looks set to combine battlefield fiction with spy work and political tension. If you like late eighteenth-century war novels with a young officer at the center and plenty of room for conspiracy as well as combat, Kennett's Campaigns offers a promising start.