Joss Lambert has always been a loner, constrained by a secret from his past, until he finds friendship and solace firstly with Guy Liddell, a friend from school, and then with Guy's family, who welcome him into their farmhouse home. Joss increasingly comes to depend upon the Liddells and treats Alvesdon Farm as the one place where he feels not only appreciated but also truly happy. But in late 1930s England, the idyll cannot last.
With war looming, Joss is forced to confront the past. He escapes through flying, becoming a fighter pilot in the RAF. But with the onset of war, even the Liddells' world is crumbling. As Joss is fighting for his life in the Battle of Britain, so he begins to fall madly in love with Stella - Guy's twin - but with tragic consequences. Leaving England and the Liddells far behind, he continues to fly amid the sand and heat of North Africa's deserts, flying above the 'Desert Rats' of the 8th Army, until his hopes and dreams are seemingly shattered for good...

James Holland is an internationally acclaimed and award-winning historian, writer, and broadcaster. The author of a number of best-selling histories including most recently Brothers In Arms and Normandy '44, he is also the author of ten works of fiction and a dozen Ladybird Experts.
He is the co-founder of the annual Chalke Valley History Festival which is now in its twelfth year, and he has presented - and written - many television programmes and series for the BBC, Channel 4, National Geographic and the History and Discovery channels.
With Al Murray, he has a successful Second World War podcast, We Have Ways of Making You Talk, which also has its own festival, and is a research fellow at St Andrew's University and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. He can be found on Twitter as @James1940 and on Instagram as @jamesholland1940.