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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 The Savage Storm and Cassino '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.
Gosh, that's torn it! It's 1939 and the Hun is on the march! Sporting his stiffest upper lip, fighter pilot Joss Lambert waves goodbye to love of his life Stella and the verdant pastures of Wiltshire, and climbs into his tiny cockpit to soar into the burning blue to blast damn Jerry to kingdom come. Oh the infernal heat of North Africa making a chap sweat buckets. Oh the pesky desert flies incessantly crawling over a chap's grub. Oh the awful stench of a chap's burning flesh when the engine's hit and he's engulfed in flames. And then - dash it all! - a letter from Stella. 'I'm so sorry, but I cannot go on like this worrying about you constantly, not knowing whether you are alive or dead. It's eating me away. I thought I was stronger...' Damn these women - never could understand a chap's duty to his country! James Holland's novel is a perfect yarn for readers who like characters who conform to stereotypes - in this case presumably gleaned from British war films of the fifties. Sorry, chaps, but not my cup of tea. (Kirkus UK)
