The Wool Smuggler

In 14th-century England, English wool was worth more than gold. The king's export tax on a single sack could buy an entire flock of sheep, so the only way to make real money was to smuggle it across the Channel to the weavers of Flanders, under cover of night. In Kent they called these men "owlers," because they moved like owls in the dark. This is the true-to-life tale of one of them.John Symore (who sometimes answers to the name John Forgate) was shipwrecked on the Kent coast as a baby. Raised on a remote farm near Appledore, he never knew he had a half-brother-or that his quiet childhood hid a violent secret. When he finally leaves the farm, he falls in with the Ravens Hall gang on the lonely Isle of Oxney and learns the dangerous, lucrative craft of wool smuggling. As the Black Death begins its deadly march across England, John and his newly found brother Adam flee north. In London they attempt a daring burglary that ends in disaster. To escape the law they sign on to a warship, fight pirates, and take part in the great sea battle of Winchelsea in 1350. Back on land, the brothers are drawn into the powerful Thames Alliance-a smuggling network that runs wool from the Kent marshes to Flanders and Scotland. John rises to become captain of his own smuggling vessel, always one step ahead of the king's customs men. This is a sweeping 14th-century adventure of crime and survival: shipwrecks, plague, burglary, piracy, naval battles, forbidden cargoes, corruption, and murder. Two very different brothers-one restless and ambitious, the other steady and loyal-are bound together by blood and danger. In the end only one will find redemption, and the love that makes it possible. Perfect for readers who love the gritty, vivid world of medieval England brought to life in books like Ken Follett's The Evening and the Morning or C. J. Sansom's Dissolution.