In 1898, eighteen-year-old John Coles sails into Manila Bay aboard the USS Petrel, eager to prove himself in America’s war against Spain. The spectacular American victory should be the beginning of glory. Instead, it becomes the beginning of a far more complicated war.

Sent ashore to train Filipino revolutionaries, Coles befriends their charismatic leader Emilio Aguinaldo and falls for a young Filipina, Iliana. But when former allies become enemies and the United States takes possession of the Philippines, the sailor who believes fiercely in God, country, and the Navy finds those loyalties pulling him in different directions.

From naval battles and jungle campaigns to guerrilla ambushes, atrocities, Moro warriors, and pirates, Coles survives dangers that harden his body while testing his conscience. The better he becomes at war, the harder it is to decide what victory really means.

Set against the turbulent birth of American power in the Pacific, The Bluejacket’s Manual is an immersive historical novel about friendship, duty, empire, and one young sailor’s struggle to preserve his humanity when the certainties he sailed with begin to disappear.