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    Sharpe’s Fury: The Battle of Barrosa, March 1811
    Unavailable
    Sharpe’s Fury: The Battle of Barrosa, March 1811
    Unavailable
    Sharpe’s Fury: The Battle of Barrosa, March 1811
    Audiobook (abridged)5 hours

    Sharpe’s Fury: The Battle of Barrosa, March 1811

    Written by Bernard Cornwell

    Narrated by Paul Mcgann

    3.5/5

    ()

    Unavailable in your country

    Unavailable in your country

    About this audiobook

    The audiobook of the long-awaited twenty-first novel in the number one bestselling series featuring Richard Sharpe.

    In the winter of 1811 the war seemed lost. All Spain has fallen to the French, except for Cadiz which is now the Spanish capital and is under siege. Wellington and his British army are in Portugal, waiting for spring to spark the war to life again.
    Richard Sharpe and his company are part of a small expeditionary force sent to break a bridge across the River Guadiana. What begins as a brilliant piece of soldiering turns into disaster, thanks to the brutal savagery of the French Colonel Vandal who is leading his battalion to join the siege of Cadiz. Sharpe extricates a handful of men from the debacle and is driven south into the threatened city.

    There, in Cadiz, he discovers more than one enemy. Many Spaniards doubt Britain's motives and believe their future would be brighter if they made peace with the French, and one of them, a baleful priest, secures a powerful weapon to break the British alliance. He will use a beautiful whore and the letters she received from a wealthy man. The priest will use blackmail, and Sharpe must defeat him in a sinister war of knife and treachery in the dark alleys of the city.

    Yet the alliance will only survive if the French siege can be lifted. An allied army marches from the city to take on the more powerful French and, once again, a brilliant piece of soldiering turns to disaster, this time because the Spanish refuse to fight. A small British force is trapped by a French army, and the only hope now lies with the outnumbered redcoats who, on a hill beside the sea, refuse to admit defeat. And there, in the sweltering horror of Barossa, Sharpe finds Colonel Vandal again.

    Sharpe's Fury is based on the real events of the winter of 1811 that led to the extraordinary victory of Barossa, the battle which saw the British capture the first French eagle of the Napoleonic Wars.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateFeb 5, 2007
    ISBN9780007259595
    Unavailable
    Sharpe’s Fury: The Battle of Barrosa, March 1811
    Author

    Bernard Cornwell

    BERNARD CORNWELL is the author of over fifty novels, including the acclaimed New York Times bestselling Saxon Tales, which serve as the basis for the hit Netflix series The Last Kingdom. He lives with his wife on Cape Cod and in Charleston, South Carolina.

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    Reviews for Sharpe’s Fury

    3.5/5

    11 ratings10 reviews

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    • 4/5
      There isn't a great deal of fury going on in this eleventh (chronologically) Richard Sharpe novel, but at this point it must have started getting difficult to come up with titles? Maybe?

      At any rate, Sharpe's Fury is, well, another Sharpe novel, in which much the sort of thing that happens in other Sharpe novels, happens again. He survives the nearly fatal incompetence of yet another highly placed British officer and manages to distinguish himself in doing so. He gets suckered into a decidedly non-military assignment on which, potentially, the fate of the Peninsular War depends. He meets a pretty woman of loose morals at just the right between-lovers moment to enjoy her usually expensive favors for free. He earns grudging admiration and gratitude and makes new enemies. He ruffles allied feathers. He is Richard Sharpe in a Richard Sharpe novel.

      The fun here is largely in the side plots, which in this novel take place largely in and around boats, as befits its overall setting of the Spanish city of Cadiz, one of Europe's oldest cities, almost completely surrounded by the sea, its inhabitants desperately afraid that their British allies are going to make it into another Gibraltar. Well, most of them are afraid; some of them are more concerned about fanning that fear for their own political ends, whether they be to make of Spain a throwback autocratic monarchy/theocracy or to liberate it as a republic (with or without the help of Napoleon) or to continue to enjoy its current state of near lawlessness and profit potential.

      Which brings us back to the main plot, which has Henry Wellesley, brother of the Iron Duke and British envoy to Spain in his own right. Unhappily married, it is he who first and primarily enjoys the favors of this novel's token female, only to convince himself he's in love, pen her some very indiscreet letters in which he tries to show off and impress her and thereby gives the Brit-haters of Cadiz exactly the kind of ammunition they need to make Brit-haters of the whole of Cadiz.

      Guess who gets to try to buy, steal or destroy those letters? Hint: one of them carries around a non-regulation sword and rose up from the ranks; another carries a seven-barreled volley gun and actually gets to use it a bit. And, you know, the rest of their friends.

      But that's all just the middle third of the book, which is bookended with, what else, battles. The last third, in a bit of a departure for the Sharpe novels, is rather light on scenes that actually feature Sharpe, as even Bernard "I put my infantry bastard at Trafalgar" Cornwell had trouble working his hero into the Battle of Barrosa. Suffice it to say that while Sharpe was playing spy/thief, the rest of the British are channeling Buttercup's beloved: "We are men of action; lies do not become us."

      Again, history knowledge acts as a spoiler for this stuff, so I'm proud of myself for avoiding that Wikipedia article until just now. And again, well, the Spanish do not come off so well, perhaps even worse than the last time they let their British allies down. Still, I have a new hero about whom I wish to learn more in Sir Thomas Graham. Wow, that guy.
    • 3/5
      Not quite up to standard, but a few exciting scenes, especially the fight in the cathedral.
      Sharpe gets involved with trying to recover some incriminating love letters by a British official. Blackmail is being attempted to try to persuade the Spanish to throw in with the French. The usual complications ensue.
    • 4/5
      It was refreshing that Sharpe didn't end up with the girl. Mr. Cornwell, Sharpe doesn't ALWAYS need to get the girl! It gets a little old.Other than that, it was a pretty good one.
    • 4/5
      As Cornwell explains in his always enlightening 'historical note' he visted the Barrossa battlefield while on a personal trip to Spain and thus Sharpe and Harper were sure to follow. Sharpe's Fury tells the tale of a crucial turning point in the Penninsular War against Napoleon's armies - the 1811 Battle of Barrossa. Spain (or the Spain that was allied with Britain) was reduced to a foothold in Cadiz. The British won (with virtually no Spanish help) and a tide was turned. The battle also featured the first 'eagle' (or cuckoo) taken by the British (Sharpe's Eagle notwithstanding). I've read nearly all the Sharpe books (as well several other Cornwell novels) and I found Sharpe's Fury to be every bit as good as any of the others (well, except maybe Sharpe's Fortress, a personal favorite). The book features an exciting retelling of a famous Napleonic battle with numerous real historical characters (Thomas Graham, Henry Wellesley, and Sgt. Patrick Masterson to name a few) and of course a beautiful and intelligent woman. Highly recommended for fans of Sharpe, historical action novels or the Napleonic wars.
    • 4/5
      I love Sharpe's books, however, this one is not his best adventures. There seems to be a bit too much going on and the writing is oddly repetitive. Ah well. I did enjoy reading about Ensign Keogh, Sergeant Masterson and the Irishmen of the 87th. Faugh a ballagh!
    • 3/5
      Okay, but not his best. The ending was a good description of the battle but it felt as if Sharpe was almost a bystander.
    • 5/5
      In truth this is the first 'Sharpe' book that I have read and they are a completely new departure for me. That being said I really enjoyed it and will certainly follow up with others in the series.Needless to say I come in very late on in Sharpe's career (seldom starting my reading in the correct order) so it took a little time to make sense of it all. My only prior knowledge came via two DVD's in fact.Sharpe seems to be a 'loveable rogue' type of character and I look forward to reading more about him in due course.I took the trouble on completing this book to check the historical facts of the Battle of Barrosa and of some of the participating characters,and I must say Bernard Cornwell seems to have done his research very well.
    • 5/5
      No. 11 in the Richard Sharpe series.In March of 1811, the British are still penned up in Portugal behind the impregnable defenses of Torres Veras. Sharpe has been sent to Cádiz as a special agent to the British ambassador, Sir Henry Wellesley, who is Wellington’s brother. While Spain is nominally Britain’s ally, there are plenty of Spanish who would much prefer the French. Sharpe’s Fury is based on a plot to extort money by blackmail from the British ambassador, throw in with the French, and restore the Spanish king who is a French prisoner.That’s the basic story line. The plotting is more intricate than usual in the Sharpe series, but this installment has all the qualities that make the series so outstanding: meticulous research, amazing detail, superbly realized battle scenes, and excellent writing (although there is a tendency in the Rifles to grin entirely too much). The combination of the research and detail give this book, as in others, a hefty feel of authenticity. The Battle of Barrosa occupies a significantly larger portion of the story than the battles in the previous 2-3 books. The novel also contains a slightly altered version of the real capture of a French Eagle by Sgt. Patrick Masterson. There was a fictional version, based on this real event, in Sharpe’s Eagle. My edition has two excellent diagrams, one showing the French, Spanish, and British positions, the other a diagrammatic map of Cádiz and the surrounding area in 1811. There is the usual Historical Note afterwards, explaining what liberties Cornwell took with the real events, sketches of the historical figures involved, and giving casualty figures for the battle.One of my favorites in the series. Highly recommended
    • 4/5
      Another rousing Sharpe adventure, with military action large and small, rotten enemies to be personally defeated by Sharpe, all in the context of historically accurate descriptions of Britain's war against Napoleon. This action takes place in 1811, when the British army was pinned in Cadiz by the French forces.
    • 4/5
      A bit too much to expect that Sharpe could seemingly be so many places at once, but still very enjoyable. It does seem that he is little more than an observer once the main battle begins, but it seems even more incredible that he would be there at all. Loved learning about Sir Thomas Graham, Ensign Keogh, Sgt. Masterson, Major Browne and the astounding victory at Barrosa - so this entry in the series is much appreciated.