Lion of the Sea

Lion of the Sea Synopsis

On August 10th, 1628, His Royal Majesty’s warship Vasa set sail on her maiden voyage. There had never been anything like her. Fitted out with massive cannon and festooned in bright crimson, she seemed the invincible rock star of the fleet. Yet within twenty inglorious minutes, Vasa mysteriously sank, taking with her a nation’s best hopes. Why?

Vasa had been the dream of Sweden’s fiery young monarch – Gustav II Adolf. With such a mighty dreadnaught, Gustav could rule the Baltic. But Vasa held more than awesome cannon. She carried two of the world’s most powerful secrets – monumental truths that remained hidden until today. Lion of the Sea is the saga of these colossal riddles.

At the Battle of Riga, years before, Gustav had plundered a king’s ransom in gold. Yet there was something else, something darker. Hidden in the bullion was the legendary Spear of Longinus – the very shaft a Roman centurion had used to kill Christ. With it, according to legend, Sweden would be at once indomitable. Suddenly Gustav had the funds and the Holy Lance to wage all-out war. How to safeguard both treasure and relic? The answer: a super ship – Vasa.

Over three centuries later, Vasa was miraculously salvaged. Somehow she had remained intact. In time she would be barged to her own Museum – a new national treasure. Then the unimaginable happened: Vasa began to fall apart. Giant lesions inexplicably burst from her twin-tiered hull. Had the infamous Vasa curse returned?

In desperation, the Museum hires Vanessa Hybertsson, a renowned biochemist and great-grand-daughter of Vasa’s first designer, to stem the damage. She launches her own impassioned crusade to save the great ship. Yet what she discovers goes way beyond mere science – something far more perilous. Others are ruthlessly pursuing the same forbidden secrets – a ruthless brotherhood descended from Gustav’s own Royal Guard. The closer Vanessa gets to Vasa’s enigmas, the more endangered she becomes. As the tale fast-forwards, past and present merge as a king and a scientist, nearly four centuries apart, converge on the same unspeakable truth – why Vasa foundered . 

Vanessa devises a plan far bolder than anything Gustav ever dared. She masterminds a plot to actually hijack Vasa – a ship that hasn’t sailed in over three hundred years. In a story-telling tour de force, driven by supernatural destiny, the majestic warship defies all odds and sails forth.

Lion of the Sea is a breathless thrill ride of actual yet unknown historical fact, real-life characters, stunning state-of-the-art undersea archaeology, heart-pumping action and terrifying mysticism. An original edge-of-your-seat high adventure.