Fallen skies

Summary: Lily Valance wants to forget the war; her father has been killed in France and several friends are dead or maimed beyond recognition. She wants to enjoy the world of the 1920s, a world of music, singing, laughter and pleasure. So when she meets dashing Stephen Winters, a decorated hero back from the front, she is drawn to his wealth and status. But Stephen is a man deeply scarred, still troubled by nightmares of the fighting on the plains of Flanders, alienated from his comfortable home, his family firm of solicitors, and close to no-one but his shell shocked mute batman, Coventry. When he marries Lily, he wants a wife who will help him forget, who will save him from the past and ease his sense of guilt at surviving where so many were lost. Such hopes prove ill founded, for Lily is determined to continue her career as a music hall singer and has the courage to confront Stephen and the hypocritical façade of his mother’s house. With the help of her friend Charlie, Lily challenges the codes and restrictions of the silent Portsmouth home. The birth of baby Christopher should signal a renewal of hope for the Winters family. But hidden tensions come to a head. Stephen’s dreadful dreams merge even closer with reality and the truth of what took place in the mud and darkness in 1918 brings him and all who loved him to a terrible reckoning. The horrors of ware refuse to melt away…