Seth Hunter Books in Order

If you want to start at the beginning: The Time of Terror → The Tide of War → The Price of Glory
If you want the core naval run: The Tide of War → The Winds of Folly → The Flag of Freedom
If you want the later Atlantic arc: The Sea of Silence → Trafalgar → The Force of Fate

Seth Hunter is the pen name of Paul Bryers, a London-based novelist, screenwriter, and filmmaker. He was born in Liverpool, went to Quarry Bank School there, and later studied modern history, politics, and economics at the University of Southampton.

His route into writing did not begin at a desk. After university he joined the Mirror group's journalist training scheme, spent two years on national newspapers, then moved into television as a reporter and presenter for Southern ITV. Later he worked as a freelance producer and director, covering conflicts in Africa, the Middle East, and South America.

History was never far away.

As a filmmaker, Bryers wrote and directed documentaries and docudramas for British and American television. His work includes Queen Victoria's Empire, Murder at Canterbury, Nelson's Trafalgar, A Vote for Hitler, and A Strike Out of Time. Queen Victoria's Empire won an outstanding achievement award at the New York Film Festival, and The Line, part of Seven Wonders of the Industrial World, was BAFTA-nominated.

He was also publishing novels under his own name long before Seth Hunter appeared. Hollow Target won a British Arts Council award for Best First Novel, and In a Pig's Ear was named one of the Guardian's best novels of the year. Other books, including The Prayer of the Bone and The Used Women's Book Club, show the same pull toward danger, politics, and people caught in situations bigger than themselves.

He never stayed in just one lane for long.

Bryers also wrote for younger readers. His Mysteries of the Septagram books, Kobal, Avatar, and Abyss, brought fantasy and adventure to a different audience, and Spooked: The Haunting of Kit Connelly was shortlisted for the Phoenix Award. That move between adult fiction, children's books, journalism, and screen work helps explain why his novels often feel both wide-ranging and brisk.

In 2008 he began publishing historical adventures as Seth Hunter, starting with The Time of Terror. That novel introduced Nathan Peake, a British naval officer who also works as a spy and occasional diplomat during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. The books that followed, including The Tide of War, The Sea of Silence, Trafalgar, and The Force of Fate, move from Paris and the English coast to the Caribbean, Haiti, India, and the early United States.

What holds those books together is not just naval action. Bryers is interested in revolutions, empires, divided loyalties, and the way public events press on private lives. Nathan Peake has to deal with admirals, politicians, spies, mutiny, slavery, and the messy overlap between principle and survival, which gives the series more room than a simple battle-at-sea story.

These days Bryers is still based in London. He has also taught creative writing to MA students at Southampton, Winchester, and Bath Spa, and he is a member of PEN and the Society of Authors. Seth Hunter may be a pen name, but it fits a career built around history, argument, movement, and stories that like to travel.