Today, July 8, 2011, Boson Books of Raleigh, North Carolina released the worldwide ebook Scarborough Fair  by Saltburn-by-the-Sea author Chris Scott Wilson. Better known for his gritty westerns, Scarborough Fair shows that when Wilson forsakes the land for the sea, he is still very much at home spinning yarns to make even salty sailors smile. In Scarborough Fair he tells the story of how John Paul Jones became America’s first great naval hero.

In 1779, just south of Scarborough on the Yorskhire coast, he tackled a brand new English frigate, HMS Serapis. They fought within sight of the very shores of England, the nation whose proud boast was its invincible navy. It was at that Battle of Flamborough Head that John Paul Jones became a legend.

 The author, Chris Scott Wilson, who lives on the Yorkshire coast at Saltburn, comments, “Jones was an extraordinary man whose famous cry was, ‘Surrender? I have not yet begun to fight.’ And he never gave up. It seems astounding these days to think he was only 31 years old when he fought that great battle. Although the English press called him a pirate or lampooned him as a comic figure, the pen in this case wasn’t mightier than the sword. Paul Jones’s courage, grit and determination moulded him into a hero.”

The best-selling author Clive Cussler, himself fascinated in Paul Jones to the point of financing several expeditions to search the North Sea for the wreckage of Bonhomme Richard, wrote to Chris: “Scarborough Fair is a terrific story. Of course, you English always had a better command of the language than we colonists. The Serapis and Bonhomme Richard battle was always a great adventure tale and you did it proud.”

Scarborough Fair is available now from your favourite ebook retailer.