Blue skies & gunfire - K. M. Peyton

When Josie is evacuated to her aunt and uncle's farm in Essex, she meets and falls in love with seventeen year old Jumbo, a happy-go-lucky optimistic young man who doesn't let his disability interrupt a life full of fun. Their relationship takes off, despite the difficulties of the war, which interrupts their idyll from time to time with stories of tragedy and death.

But when Josie meets Chris, Jumbo's heroic fighter pilot brother, she experiences feelings that are out of control and dangerous; is this what real love feels like? She is torn between the two young men - one who is steady and loving, the other wayward and challenging. Yet it may not be her choice to make, as the German attack on England becomes more and more dangerous...

Set against the backdrop of the second world war, where people diced with life and death every day, this is a wonderfully moving story of love, passion and tragedy.

Kathleen M Peyton is a top-selling author of more than thirty novels, the best-known of which is FLAMBARDS which, with its sequels, was made into a TV serial. The winner of both the Carnegie Medal and the Guardian Award for her work, Kathleen lives in Essex with her husband.

A gorgeous love story . . . Marvellous
Daily Express - Kati Nicholl

A disturbing but richly evocative narrative which illustrates the human cost of war
Books for Keeps

The Blue Skies and Gunfire of the title are beautifully evoked in this wartime romance
The Children's Bookseller - Becky Stradwick

A pleasure to read . . . A moving love story that illustrates the hardships, tensions and freedoms in the Second World War
Publishing News - Georgina Hanratty