If you’ve seen the movie (highly recommended), the book is set about 7-8 years ahead of the movie and is the first introduction of Aubrey and Maturin. This book is based on the real life exploits of Lord Cochrane.

Epic Age of Sail series, with 20 completed novels. Some adult relationship content and lots of battle scenes, so recommend research before sharing with kids (14+ is my personal recommendation, but ymmv).