For all you followers of Jack Absolute (the 007 of the 1770s) it's been a long wait. For those who've never heard what the Good Book Guide UK called 'the finest series of historical novels since Patrick O'Brian', this is a good place to begin...at the very beginning!

'Concerning the circumstances of his birth, including his mother’s resistance to lechery, his father’s solo cavalry charge on the battlefield of Dettingen, and sundry other matters.'

1743 - in London, the beautiful singer and actress Jane Fitzsimmons is heavily pregnant. Despite her condition, she is having to fight off the lecherous attentions of James Quin, the foremost actor of the day. She is praying that the man she loves, the father of her unborn child, returns to prevent her surrender - and make sure her child is not born a bastard by marrying her in time. But James Absolute is fighting the French in Germany...and the Allied army has just been trapped near a village called Dettingen.

Will her letter even reach him? If it does, will Young Absolute be able to fight his way through 10,000 Frenchmen and get back to her in the nick? Find out by listening to author and actor Chris (CC) Humphreys reading his own novella...and begin the Jack Absolute story, published for the very first time.

"An absolute delight! ...one of the most appealing military gentlemen ever to wear a sword." (Diana Gabaldon, author of Outlander)