Fair Blows the Wind

by Louis L’Amour Book 1 in the Talon and Chantry series.

First published 1978

Amazon

4.5(2,131)

Set in the late Elizabethan Atlantic world of the sixteenth century, Fair Blows the Wind is a novel built around the pressures of its historical setting. His father killed by the British and his home burned, young Tatton Chantry left Ireland to make his fortune and regain the land that was rightfully his. Schooled along the way in the use of arms, Chantry arrives in London a wiser and far more dangerous man. He invests in trading ventures, but on a voyage to the New World his party is attacked by Indians and he is marooned in the untamed wilderness of the Carolina coast. It is in this darkest time, when everything seems lost, that Chantry encounters a remarkable opportunity. . . . Suddenly all his dreams are within reach: extraordinary wealth, his family land, and the heart of a Peruvian beauty.

The historical background is Elizabethan Age. L’Amour uses practical details of travel, work, weather, weapons, distance and local authority to make the setting more than a backdrop. The result combines fast-moving adventure with a strong sense of how isolation, weak institutions and rapid economic change could shape individual choices.