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Cadnum, Michael.
SHIP OF FIRE
New York : Viking, 2003.
IL YA
ISBN 0670899070
What if you were only 17 and a surgeon?  And a spy?  The year is 1587, the time of Elizabethan England and Shakespeare, and a year before the Spanish Armada will sail in an attempt to invade England.  Thomas Spyre is a 17 year old surgeon's apprentice on board Sir Francis Drake’s flagship.  When his master dies unexpectedly, Thomas is left as the chief surgeon and now Drake’s fleet is sailing to raid the Spanish Port of Cadiz.  Not only is Thomas the surgeon, but he has been asked to spy on Drake to see if he is a pirate or if his loyalties truly are to England’s Queen Elizabeth.  Thomas is skilled in the latest medical techniques of amputation, blood letting, and herbal cures, and he is a fine swordsman, but this is his first time at sea.  Thomas’ skills will be put to the test as he cares for the wounded men and must also fight the Spanish.  Author Michael Cadnum spares no details in describing the harsh realities of life at sea. (Shawn Crosby, scrosby@kcls.org, Des Moines Library, Des Moines, WA)
SUBJECTS:     Apprentices -- Fiction.
                        Physicians -- Fiction.
                        Seafaring life -- Fiction.
                        Drake, Francis, Sir, 1540?-1596 -- Fiction.
                        Great Britain -- History -- Elizabeth, 1558-1603 -- Fiction.
                        Historical fiction.

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