Wakefield Press
long flight home
Part adventure, part romance, my debut historical fiction Long Flight Home was inspired by the true story of the first flight across the world in 1919. It was a time of open cockpits, and there were basically no airfields after India!
This is a wonderful tale, superbly told. And it all happened!
- Peter FitzSimons
about long flight home
The First World War is over and air mechanic Wally Shiers has promised to return home to his fiancée, Helena Alford. But Wally never reckoned on charismatic fighter pilot Ross Smith, and an invitation to compete in the world’s most audacious air race.
A ₤10,000 prize has been offered for the first airmen to fly from England to Australia. Smith is banking on an open-cockpit Vickers Vimy, a biplane with a fuselage that looks ominously like a coffin.
And who can resist a hero? Wally writes to Helena to say he won’t be home for another year – and the love of his life is left holding her hand-stitched wedding dress and fighting back her shame...
Using war diaries, letters and Churchill Fellowship research from along the race route, Long Flight Home recreates one of the most important – and largely forgotten – chapters in world aviation history.
Anderson’s ambitious and moving novel is told through her narrator, Wally Shiers. The tale spans the decades and crosses the globe, and at his journey’s end we’re left peering down from an open cockpit on two beacons of truth. There is no heroism without honour. There is no legacy without love.
how to buy
Long Flight Home is available to order from all bookstores and online sellers, and as an e-book from a range of suppliers including my publisher Wakefield Press and Amazon (for Kindle) . UK publisher Ulverscroft has also released large-print and audio versions. For a signed copy, email lainieanderson@internode.on.net.