The Second Coming Volume Two

More action, adventure, passion and intrigue as the story continues, taking the reader on a voyage from England to the Caribbean, the Sinai desert and to Spain. The plot becomes even darker, ending in a sombre and shocking climax to this, the second volume of the trilogy. In Volume I, the groundwork of the story is laid out and some of the characters, plot and sub-plots are presented. The tale begins in the year 1667 with a violent sea battle and introduces John Hadleigh, a lieutenant in the English navy sailing the Caribbean under the captaincy of Charles Jellicoe. The victors in this battle against a Spanish warship, the English find a chained prisoner who is in possession of a peculiar little book, stolen from a shadowy and powerful organization calling itself The Hands of God and which reveals the whereabouts of mysterious objects. This book, its provenance and its contents are the backbone of the story of The Second Coming Trilogy, and Volume II concerns itself with love, suspicion, betrayal and the finding of one of the objects described in the arcane book. Now, in 1670, Hadleigh commands a small warship and with his lover Charlotte Young sails for the Caribbean via the Canary Islands to plunder Spanish shipping as English privateers, but the true purpose of the undertaking is known only to a very few on board. The long voyage itself, the acceptance or not of Charlotte – a woman alone in a man’s world – the tensions, the building of friendships, the making of enemies, the violent encounters and the forming of a crew worthy of the name characterize the first part of volume II. With Port Royal Jamaica as a base, the tale continues and the introduction of Blandine Delvaux, a Creole plantation owner and a freer of slaves takes it to a new level. Meanwhile at the Court of Madrid, the story follows the scheming of the founder of The Hands of God, Fernando de Valenzuela and his affair with Queen Regent Mariana. Hadleigh’s friend, Arthur Aylott, an envoy for the English Admiralty to Spain and his new wife are suspected of plotting against The Hands of God, and the subsequent measures taken to stop them threaten to cost them their lives.