This is not an epic wartime love novel but a quick and warm read with the ending melting your heart, that love will conquer all.Two refugees from the Spanish Civil War cross the Atlantic Ocean to Chile and a half-century of political and personal upheavals. And It could be slow sometimes on Susan’s part but eventually the storyline moved along and I found myself pulled into the book delightedly. It’s a moving story inspired by true historical event, with war and romance as backdrop, although I found the romance part a bit weak and not being built up solidly, which I wish the author could have spent more time brewing it. Fate eventually took them apart with Oliver captured in France without a word until 50 years later the two finally found each other through Susan’s pet pigeon, Duchess, who played an important role in the story for its remarkable intelligence and courage.

This is a nicely done debut about a story set in WWII – Two young people crossed paths in wartime England – Susan, who played an active role in providing pigeon service to the British government to gather intelligence at German-occupied France, then came Oliver, the American crop duster who wanted nothing but being a RAF pilot to help Britain win the war, and how the chance encountered and enfolded their budding romance. Yet Duchess's devotion and her singular sense of duty will become an unexpected lifeline. When Ollie's plane is downed behind enemy lines, both know how remote the chances of reunion must be.

The friendship between Ollie and Susan deepens as the mission date draws near. Those that do make the journey home to England can convey crucial information on German troop movements-and help reclaim the skies from the Luftwaffe. Codenamed Source Columba, the mission aims to air-drop hundreds of homing pigeons in German-occupied France.

His quest brings him to Epping and to the National Pigeon Service, where Susan is involved in a new, covert assignment. Thousands of miles away in Buxton, Maine, a young crop-duster pilot named Ollie Evans has decided to travel to Britain to join the Royal Air Force. All her birds are extraordinary to Susan-loyal, intelligent, beautiful-but none more so than Duchess, who shares a special bond with Susan and an unusual curiosity about the human world. After losing her parents to influenza as a child, Susan found comfort in raising homing pigeons with Bertie. Enemy fighter planes blacken the sky around the Epping Forest home of Susan Shepherd and her grandfather, Bertie. It is September 1940-a year into the war-and as German bombs fall on Britain, fears grow of an impending invasion.

The long flight home book review