I, uh, didn’t know that Susan Cooper was still publishing books. Yeah, that Susan Cooper. But really — The Dark is Rising sequence is from when? So when I picked up a copy of this novel, I assumed it was from the early 1980s or something. An odd reference in the book made me turn to the copyright page and, yep, it was published in 2006. 2006! What other of her books had I been missing?!? Well, Wikipedia tells me that she’s published about eight novels aside from her famous sequence, and a dozen or so picture books for children. It also told me that she’s living in Massachusetts, and that she was married to Hume Cronyn, the actor, for about seven years (until his death).

Victory is a children’s novel, set in two times: early 1800s England and 2005(ish, current) America. The stories are told through alternating chapters; the 1800s story is narrated (in first person, past tense) by Sam Robbins, and the contemporary story is told (in third person, present tense) from the view of Molly Jennings. Sam Robbins has just left his farming family to go live in town with his uncle, when the both of them are pressed into naval service on the H. M. S. Victory. That ship eventually was the one on which Lord Nelson died during the battle of Trafalgar. Molly and her family have just moved from London to the U. S., and she hates it here. One day the family visits Mystic Seaport, and in a bookstore there, she finds a biography of Lord Nelson that she is somehow drawn to. She gets very caught up in the story of his life.

This isn’t properly a fantasy; it’s a historical novel with a bit of a ghost component. It’s also short: only 186 pages long. With the alternating points of view, each story becomes very short, indeed. Each character is well-developed, though. Molly and Sam are, of course, the most well-drawn, but Sam’s uncle and Molly’s stepfather and grandfather are both wonderful characters. The grandfather has hidden depth, and turns out to be quite a help to Molly; Carl, the stepfather, is very sympathetic to Molly’s plight and aids her a lot as well. I have to mention Lord Nelson as well; he barely appears at all in Sam’s story, but his presence is everywhere. He seems to be incredibly well-liked by all of the Navy; Sam worships the ground he walks on.

What with the current trend for pirates, it appears that almost any ship-story is acceptable. Although I still don’t know very much about ships, it’s my best guess that this is an incredibly accurate description of sailing and the British Navy during the Napoleonic Wars. There is a ton of information in this book, and in the hands of a less-skilled author it could have easily become overwhelming. Somehow, though, Ms. Cooper managed to write it so that I, a non-boat sort, found that there was enough of the human element to keep me engaged in Sam’s story. I would hope that other readers would feel the same way, but if one really does not like ships, sailing, or the British Navy, one might avoid this work.

While it is definitely, by length and age of characters, a work for children, there is enough depth that I think many YAs and adults would enjoy it as well. There is some salty language from the sailors (they refer to pig excrement in no uncertain terms) and a good deal of blood and guts, but Ms. Cooper shields us from the worst of everything. We don’t see weevils in biscuits; she doesn’t describe the rats on the boat all that much; Molly has epilepsy, but never a grand mal seizure. While it wasn’t a five-star book, it was certainly everything it was supposed to be, and I enjoyed it. 4.5/5 stars.