Rafael Sabatini
4 books
- Bellarion wins by outthinking everyone, a convent-raised scholar who wanders into Montferrat's palace intrigues and starts playing the schemers at their own game, all while the princess he serves mistrusts him for years. If you like Sabatini for swordplay, know this one runs on cunning instead.
- Peter Blood is a doctor shipped off as a slave for treating the wrong patient, and watching him out-think everyone who wronged him is pure fun. Swordfights, sea battles, dry wit, and a stubborn romance with Arabella Bishop.
- André-Louis is a cynical young lawyer who hides from his enemies by joining a traveling theater troupe, then picks up a sword out of pure spite. It's revenge and revolution with a wink, and the fencing scenes are better than they have any right to be.
- Pure swashbuckle done with real bite: Sir Oliver gets betrayed by his own brother, sold to the galleys, and comes back as a Barbary corsair with a grudge you can taste. Sabatini's prose is a bit ornate, but the revenge plot moves like a knife.