Based on the real-life journals of Tom Cheke, Slave to Fortune is an award-winning historical novel,which expertly captures the bygone era of barbary corsairs, galleons and gunpowder. You can almost feel the spray on your face and catch the scent of exotic spices in the air.
Tom is torn from his Mottistone home at the tender age of fourteen by a raiding gang of pirates and their infamous corsair captain, Murat Reis. Trapped on Reis’ ship, the Sword, and whisked away to Algiers, he is shackled and bargained for on the auction block before being taken to his new home by his now master, Ibrahim Ali.
Tom soon learns their unfamiliar ways, and it’s not long before his sharp mind and quick thinking has him placed as his master’s most trusted confidanteandprotégé. But nothing lasts forever, and Ibrahim’s death at the hands of a Scottish knight from the Order of St John sees Tom catapulted into a world of cyphers, assassinations and spies, against a backdrop of religious intolerance and betrayal.
Munro has expertly woven fact and fiction to create a real swashbuckling tale, comparable to J. Meade Falkner’s Moonfleet and Robert Louis Stevenson’s Kidnapped. This book is a must-read for anyone hungry for adventure! Slave to Fortune is a remarkable account of one man’s coming-of-age story; how a child grew to adulthood shaped by adversity and conflict, learning along the way that one’s fate may be foretold, but Fortune favours the bold…