Prologue
September 1938
Heston Aerodrome, Middlesex
Thursday, 15 September 1938
The final text of the Prologue (1,105 words) will be set here from the manuscript.Author to supply
Sussex, 1939. In the quiet village of Hurst Green, the gathering shadow of war forces Lily Harper to give up her dream of becoming an artist and take on a burden she never wanted. At just twenty-two, alone after a sudden tragedy, she must shoulder the running of her family’s struggling farm.
The land is unforgiving, and the men who once worked for her father doubt she can lead them. As rationing bites and the young men march away to fight, the farm becomes a lifeline for the whole village.
Then a German fighter comes down over the Weald, and the war Lily has only heard on the wireless is lying wounded in her own fields. The enemy she was raised to fear has a face, and a name, and a quiet decency that unsettles everything she believed.
