Book picks similar to
Gentlemen of Adventure by Ernest K. Gann
fiction
aviation
air
wwi
The Flyer
Stuart Harrison - 2012
Christopher is the son of the Earl of Pitsford, whereas William runs a small garage and though clearly well-educated, his background remains a mystery. After William agrees to help Christopher build a new plane to compete in an air-trial, he is introduced to Elizabeth, and a complex relationship develops between the three young people. As William falls in love, he is plagued by the suspicion that Elizabeth is really in love with Christopher. Since the mystery surrounding William masks a deep seated loneliness and insecurity, it will only take one shattering event to expose the undercurrents of tension and destroy everything that William has tried to believe in.The second half of the story takes place several years later, during the First World War. William is a pilot in France, but his formative experiences have made him insular and bitter towards the class-ridden hierarchy of the Flying Corps. When he is shot down and crash-lands in enemy territory, he is helped by a young woman. Through Helene, he learns to trust again, and his distant exterior begins to thaw. However, he is unaware that Elizabeth, who hurt him so badly, has trained as a nurse and has come to France to try to find him and make amends for the past. It is Christopher who Elizabeth finds first though, and the complexities of the tangled relationships between these three will become the catalyst that drives the story to its conclusion. Loyalty and love are once again put to the test, but this time the stakes are literally life and death. The Flyer is a realistic blend of friendship, love and tragedy, set against a carefree summer that precedes the grim reality of the first war in history to be fought in the air.
Counter-Attack and Other Poems
Siegfried Sassoon - 1918
The book has no illustrations or index.
Band of Sisters
Lauren Willig - 2021
When charismatic alumna Betsy Rutherford delivers a rousing speech at the Smith College Club in April of 1917, looking for volunteers to help French civilians decimated by the German war machine, Kate is too busy earning her living to even think of taking up the call. But when her former best friend Emmeline Van Alden reaches out and begs her to take the place of a girl who had to drop out, Kate reluctantly agrees to join the new Smith College Relief Unit.Four months later, Kate and seventeen other Smithies, including two trailblazing female doctors, set sail for France. The volunteers are armed with money, supplies, and good intentions—all of which immediately go astray. The chateau that was to be their headquarters is a half-burnt ruin. The villagers they meet are in desperate straits: women and children huddling in damp cellars, their crops destroyed and their wells poisoned. Despite constant shelling from the Germans, French bureaucracy, and the threat of being ousted by the British army, the Smith volunteers bring welcome aid—and hope—to the region. But can they survive their own differences? As they cope with the hardships and terrors of the war, Kate and her colleagues find themselves navigating old rivalries and new betrayals which threaten the very existence of the Unit.With the Germans threatening to break through the lines, can the Smith Unit pull together and be truly a band of sisters?
The War Nurse
Tracey Enerson Wood - 2021
Can she protect them?Superintendent of Nurses Julia Stimson must recruit sixty-five nurses to relieve the battle-worn British, months before American troops are ready to be deployed. She knows that the young nurses serving near the front lines of will face a challenging situation, but nothing could have prepared her for the chaos that awaits when they arrive at British Base Hospital 12 in Rouen, France. The primitive conditions, a convoluted, ineffective system, and horrific battle wounds are enough to discourage the most hardened nurses, and Julia can do nothing but lead by example―even as the military doctors undermine her authority and make her question her very place in the hospital tent.When trainloads of soldiers stricken by a mysterious respiratory illness arrive one after the other, overwhelming the hospital's limited resources, and threatening the health of her staff, Julia faces an unthinkable choice―to step outside the bounds of her profession and risk the career she has fought so hard for, or to watch the people she cares for most die in her arms.Based on a true story, The War Nurse is a sweeping historical novel by international bestselling author Tracey Enerson Wood that takes readers on an unforgettable journey through WWI France.
Aces Falling
Peter Hart - 2007
Author Peter Hart, the Oral Historian at Britain’s Imperial War Museum, was granted unprecedented access to the museum’s archives; through these rare manuscripts and firsthand accounts, he provides a riveting perspective on the first true “air war.” From the swirling dogfights to the bombing missions that became ever more deadly, the book reveals the terrible scope of aerial combat and commemorates the men who fought, killed, and died in the clouds above.
Regency Revels
Stephanie Laurens - 2004
Knowing no one, she flees to Dominic Ridgely's estate. The viscount hears Georgiana's plea to find her a position as a lady's companion with barely concealed ill humour. A lovely innocent such as Miss Hartley subjected to that wretched existence? The very idea is preposterous. Instead, he introduces her to his sister's influence. Suddenly Georgiana is transformed into a lady, charming the ton and cultivating a bevy of suitors. Everything is unfolding according to Dominic's plan...until he realises that he desires Georgiana for his own.Four In HandMax Rotherbridge couldn't believe it. Along with the dukedom of Twyford, he - London's most notorious rogue - had inherited wardship of four devilishly attractive sisters! Including the irresistible Caroline Twinning. The eldest Twinning was everything he had ever wanted in a woman, but even Max couldn't seduce his own ward...or could he? After all, he did have a substantial reptuation to protect. And what better challenge than the one woman capable of stealing his heart?
Another World
Pat Barker - 1998
As Nick's suburban family loses control over their world, Nick begins to learn his grandfather's buried secrets and comes to understand the power of old wounds to leak into the present. As a study of the power of memory and loss, Another World conveys with extraordinary intensity the ways in which the violent past returns to haunt and distort the present.
Easterleigh Hall at War
Margaret Graham - 2015
With its army of volunteers and wounded servicemen, cook Evie Forbes is determined that everyone will be properly provided for, despite the threat of rationing and dwindling supplies. All the while she waits for letters from her fiancé and beloved brother, fighting on the Western Front. Then the worst happens – a telegram arrives with shattering news. And Evie wonders if she’ll have the strength to carry on…
The Absolutist
John Boyne - 2011
But the letters are not the real reason for Tristan's visit. He can no longer keep a secret and has finally found the courage to unburden himself of it. As Tristan recounts the horrific details of what to him became a senseless war, he also speaks of his friendship with Will - from their first meeting on the training grounds at Aldershot to their farewell in the trenches of northern France. The intensity of their bond brought Tristan happiness and self-discovery as well as confusion and unbearable pain. The Absolutist is a masterful tale of passion, jealousy, heroism, and betrayal set in one of the most gruesome trenches of France during World War I. This novel will keep readers on the edge of their seats until its most extraordinary and unexpected conclusion, and will stay with them long after they've turned the last page.
The Lie
Helen Dunmore - 2014
He is back from the war, homeless and without family. Behind him lie the mud, barbed-wire entanglements and terror of the trenches. Behind him is also the most intense relationship of his life.Daniel has survived, but the horror and passion of the past seem more real than the quiet fields around him. He is about to step into the unknown. But will he ever be able to escape the terrible, unforeseen consequences of a lie?
The Lost Soldiers
Liz Trenow - 2018
For fans of The Nightingale, Wives of War and Lilac Girls, In Love and War reveals the strength, love and courage found even in the darkest of times, and the ultimate triumph of hope. In the summer of 1919, British Ruby is mourning her beloved husband Bertie, missing since 1916. His grief-stricken parents ask one last task of her: travel to the Belgian battlefields to find Bertie’s grave, and with it the peace that will come with knowing his final resting place. Alice, an American, knows in her heart that her brother Sam is alive – but after he signed up under a false name, no news has been heard from him since he arrived in Belgium. Leaving her life and her fiancé behind in Washington, Alice sets sail for Europe, promising herself that she will not rest until she finds her brother. Martha has risked everything to travel to Belgium. A German, she knows she will be met with neither sympathy nor understanding. But her son lies somewhere in Belgian soil, and her husband’s dying wish was for his grandfather’s bravery medal to be passed down to his son. It is a promise Martha will do anything to keep. When the lives of these three women collide, they begin to question whether that which unites them could be greater than their differences. As an unlikely friendship blossoms, their story reveals their untiring determination to find out what happened to the men they love, no matter how painful the truth.
Trapeze
Simon Mawer - 2012
But World War II has turned everyone's life inside out. Marian happens to be bilingual (her father is English, her mother French) and is recruited by the "Inter-Services Research Bureau" and enrolled in a rigorous, take-no-prisoners espionage training course to aid the French resistance. Or at least that's what Marian thinks at first. But as she learns more about the risky operation her superiors have in mind for her in occupied Paris, she begins to suspect that it may be a more personal connection that singled her out for assignment. A name from her past, Clement Pelletier, suddenly reappears, forcing Marian to call into question her first love, her dangerous mission, and how far she's willing to go for the cause.
In Falling Snow
Mary-Rose MacColl - 2012
'In the beginning, it was the summers I remembered - long warm days under the palest blue skies, the cornflowers and forget-me-nots lining the road through the Lys forest, the buzz of insects going about their work, Violet telling me lies.' Iris is getting old. A widow, her days are spent living quietly and worrying about her granddaughter, Grace, a headstrong young doctor. It's a small sort of life. But one day an invitation comes for Iris through the post to a reunion in France, where she served in a hospital during WWI. Determined to go, Iris is overcome by the memories of the past, when as a shy, naive young woman she followed her fifteen-year-old brother, Tom, to France in 1914 intending to bring him home. On her way to find Tom, Iris comes across the charismatic Miss Ivens, who is setting up a field hospital in the old abbey of Royaumont, north of Paris. Putting her fears aside, Iris decides to stay at Royaumont, and it is there that she truly comes of age, finding her capability and her strength, discovering her passion for medicine, making friends with the vivacious Violet and falling in love. But war is a brutal thing, and when the ultimate tragedy happens, there is a terrible price that Iris has to pay, a price that will echo down the generations. A moving and uplifting novel about the small, unsung acts of heroism of which love makes us capable.
Little Boy Lost
Marghanita Laski - 1949
Is the child really his? And does he want him?
The Beautiful American
Jeanne Mackin - 2014
There, she unexpectedly meets up with an old acquaintance, famous model-turned-photographer Lee Miller. Neither has emerged from the war unscathed. Nora is racked with the fear that her efforts to survive under the Vichy regime may have cost her daughter’s life. Lee suffers from what she witnessed as a war correspondent photographing the liberation of the Nazi concentration camps.Nora and Lee knew each other in the heady days of late 1920s Paris, when Nora was giddy with love for her childhood sweetheart, Lee became the celebrated mistress of the artist Man Ray, and Lee’s magnetic beauty drew them all into the glamorous lives of famous artists and their wealthy patrons. But Lee fails to realize that her friendship with Nora is even older, that it goes back to their days as children in Poughkeepsie, New York, when a devastating trauma marked Lee forever. Will Nora’s reunion with Lee give them a chance to forgive past betrayals…and break years of silence to forge a meaningful connection as women who have shared the best and the worst that life can offer?A novel of freedom and frailty, desire and daring, The Beautiful American portrays the extraordinary relationship between two passionate, unconventional women.