Rockland Public Library: Author Talk w/Kevin Mills on May 14‏th

A Sea of Liberty

Rockland, Maine - Award-winning journalist and author Kevin C. Mills writes about the age of privateers and one man’s quest for liberty in his latest historical novel.

Sea of Liberty is the third book in a trilogy based on the storied maritime history of his ancestors. It comes from years of research on a family heritage that includes shipbuilders, merchant mariners, privateers and lighthouse keepers.

Mills will be speaking at the Rockland Public Library, Thursday, May 14 at 6 p.m. and discussing how maritime issues sparked the start of the Revolutionary War and how privateers impacted the outcome.

Mills' parents and grandparents were all residents of Rockland. His grandfather was a keeper at the Rockland Breakwater at one time while his great grandfather was the longest serving keeper at Goose Rocks in the Fox Island Thorofare.

In Sea of Liberty, merchant mariner Eli Miller returns home to discover a strong British presence along the Eastern Seaboard.

With revolution about to break out, Miller must choose between serving the cause of liberty and
serving his family. Despite a past that still haunts him, Miller agrees to captain a privateer and hauls out to wage war against the British.

When he is captured, his life and liberty are in peril. He vows to escape or die trying. Sea of Liberty is a story of good and evil, war and peace, love and loss, faith and freedom.

Nautical issues were at the root of rebellion in the colonies, long before any military engagement on land. The role of privateers proved crucial in the fight against Great Britain, creating the kind of resistance to England shipping that the Continental Navy could not do itself.

The book is inspired by his own ancestor, who was one of the earliest merchant mariners out of Portsmouth, New Hampshire. He became a privateer and was captured by the British.

The other books in the series include novels Sons and Daughters of the Ocean and Breakwater. Sons and Daughters of the Ocean reached No. 13 on Amazon Kindle for Historical Fiction while Breakwater ranked fourth in Maritime Fiction and 22nd in Historical Fiction.

Mills, a Lewiston Sun Journal sportswriter, has written for some of New England’s top newspapers, including the Boston Globe, Lynn Daily Evening Item and the Portland Newspapers.

Mills, voted Best Author in the Portland Phoenix online reader’s poll in 2011, was recently recognized by the Associated Press Sports Editors for his story on Lewiston's soccer evolution. It was chosen as one of the top 10 sports features in the nation. His story on handi-capable coaches also recently was chosen as the top sports feature by the New England Press Association.

A graduate of Gorham High School and Gordon College, Mills has also been honored by the Maine Basketball Coaches Association and the Maine Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association.

Mills has also published a nonfiction work, Sidelined. It is an off-beat look at all the misadventures of two decades in the world of sports journalism.

This event, sponsored by the Friends of the Rockland Public Library, is free and open to the public. The Library is located at 80 Union St. For more information, please call 594-0310.