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A Doubt Not Cousin Saga: Colonel Fitzwilliam
Matlock Fitzwilliams #1
Independent
April 2026
On Sale: April 10, 2026
347 pages
Kindle: B0GKYFBNXG
e-Book
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Historical
He is a cavalry officer the kingdom relies upon—and does not question.
Men like him are not born. They are made. Before reputation.
Before legend.
Before the name Richard Fitzwilliam becomes synonymous with precision and fortitude. Before the Storm is the untold history of the second son of Matlock—the spare.
Fitzwilliam is marked early by a constitution that does not register pain as it should. What others feel, he notes only in passing. What begins as peculiarity becomes utility.
Sent across a Europe tightening toward war, Fitzwilliam moves through Paris, Berlin, and Vienna under constant appraisal--by diplomats, by soldiers, by men who recognise the hand of the state at work and intend to refine it further. Each encounter reveals fragments of where he is being led—and what has been prepared for him there.
This is not the story of a hero’s rise.
It records the trials an extraordinary man endures to learn where his limits lie—and whether they bind him at all.
Cold, controlled, and unflinching, Before the Storm is a psychological historical novel about loyalty, state power, and the deliberate manufacture of force—told entirely from Fitzwilliam’s singular perspective, where silence instructs, and restraint is never mercy.
From Paris to Berlin to Vienna, Fitzwilliam is tested not by what he feels—but by what he does not.
If a man does not feel pain, does he fear anything?
Author’s Note
The author recommends reading Doubt Not, Cousin to fully experience Before the Storm. Although this novel stands alone, it presents Colonel Fitzwilliam’s perspective and leads directly into the sequel, After the Fall.
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