1775. Rebellion is spreading across the American colonies — but Britain still rules the sea.

As war with the Crown becomes inevitable, a fledgling nation must build a navy from almost nothing.

Abraham Whipple takes command of Rhode Island’s first warships. Samuel Nicholas helps forge the new Continental Marines. John Paul Jones, Matthew Parke, John Trevett and other young officers find themselves aboard hastily converted merchant vessels, facing the most powerful navy in the world.

From the taverns and committee rooms of Philadelphia to the storm-lashed Atlantic, the campaign carries them south to the Bahamas, where the new American fleet launches its first major amphibious operation against New Providence.

But disease, rivalry and political interference threaten the expedition from within, while Royal Navy warships hunt them from without. And when the battered Continental fleet encounters HMS Glasgow off Rhode Island, the young navy faces its first true test in battle.

Based closely on the real men, ships and events that created the United States Navy and Marine Corps, First to Fight is an immersive naval historical novel of courage, ambition and battle at the birth of a nation.