Debra Doyle
Bio: Washington Irving was born in New York City on April 30, 1783 – the same year the Treaty of Paris put an official end to the American Revolution. When he was as young as nineteen years old, Irving began to contribute satirical essays and sketches to New York newspapers. In 1815, he went to Liverpool, England, as a silent partner in his brothers’ commercial firm, and remained there after the firm went bankrupt in 1818. Under the pen name “Geoffrey Crayon,” he wrote a number of essays and short stories. From 1826-1829, he was with the United States diplomatic staff in Madrid, and returned to Spain in 1842 after being appointed the American minister to Madrid. After leaving Spain in 1846, Irving returned to his country home near Tarrytown, New York, where he died in 1859.
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Called to duty at last, Lieutenant John Nevis faces his assignment with trepidation. Boarding the USS Nicodemus--a sloop of war built in a single night at the top of the world--Nevis wonders uneasily at its strange aura of power, its cannonballs of virgin brass ... and its uncanny ability to glide swiftly through the waters without steam or sail. As great armies clash all around them, the mission of Lieutenant Nevis and the Nicodemus crew is shrouded in an impenetrable gray mist of magic and mal... 
