Changes

After some hair-raising adventures in London, Jupiter Williams and his brother Patrick are ready to go home to Sierra Leone. They've got a passage booked on a merchant ship, but before they're on board they're attacked by a press -gang. The vessel they end up on isn't a merchant ship, it's a Royal Navy frigate, the Boneta, and they are prisoners of His Majesty, King George.

In his second outing, Jupiter is as pompous as ever. He's a great character, with good intentions and boundless curiosity and enthusiasm. He's also very funny because he's an atrocious snob. He gets a great deal wrong, but the possibility of his being in error doesn't occur to him until it's too late and he looks a fool. He makes a superb narrator too, as his curiosity allows Martin to fill the book with a great deal of historical detail without ever resorting to dull exposition. His pomposity also allows Martin to approach an approximation of 18th -century diction without putting readers off.

It's super historical fiction - there's a well-paced plot with plenty of adventure, and an absolute wealth of detail. Some of the lesser characters really did exist, the descriptions of the navy's organisation are absolutely accurate, and the Turtle actually was the first military submarine. Jupiter is a truly engaging character, flawed but lovable, and he adds real flesh to the dry bones of the early nineteenth -century black experience.

Sophisticated readers might also enjoy [[The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing: Traitor to the Nation Volume 1 The Pox Party by M T Anderson|Octavian Nothing]], about a slave in revolutionary America. [[Corsair by Tim Severin]] is another enjoyable naval adventure. It's written for adults, but any confident teenager could approach it happily. You might also like to take a look at [[A Nest of Vipers by Catherine Johnson]].