Conville & Walsh

James Holland’s serious historical novel, set during the years that book-end the beginning of the Second World War, is a sensitive exploration of the effect of war on a young generation, bringing together themes of identity, guilt, love and the nature of friendship in a gripping and moving narrative.

The book is Joss Flinder’s story – that of a disjointed individual in an increasingly disjointed world. Adopted as one of their own by David and Celia Liddell, he is shown an idyllic and privileged existence far removed from the deprivations and hardships he has suffered previously.

But Joss’s new-found family and happiness are kept together by a fragile peace, and with the onset of war, all their lives are thrown into turmoil.

From the struggle in the skies over southern England during the Battle of Britain to the North Africa desert, through broken friendships, guilt, love and death, THE BURNING BLUE is passionate, poignant and romantic – an elegy to an age that, with the onset of war, disappeared forever.