The Midnight of Eights

<p>1580.</p><p>Nelan Michaels docks at Plymouth after sailing around the world aboard the <em>Golden Hind</em>. He seeks only to master his mystical powers – the mark of the salamander, that mysterious spirit of fire – and reunite with his beloved Eleanor.</p><p>After delivering a message to Francis Walsingham, he’s recruited into the service of the Queen’s spymaster, where his astral abilities help him to predict and thwart future plots against the realm.</p><p>But in 1588, the Spanish Armada threatens England’s shores.</p><p>So how could the fledgling navy of a small, misty isle on the edge of mainland Europe repulse the greatest fleet in the world?</p><p>Was the Queen right when she claimed it was divine intervention, saying, ‘He blew with His winds, and they were scattered!’?</p><p>Or was it an entirely different intervention – the extraordinary conjunction of coincidences that Nelan’s astral powers brought to bear on that fateful Midnight of Eights?</p>