From Quiet Homes — Michael Kelly

From Quiet Homes is an historical novel evocatively grounded in a broad canvas of Australian life from the first to the second world wars. A love story is at its heart but the novel also raises broader issues about the moral dilemmas of war. It tells the story of a young Queenslander who, brought up with pacifist sympathies, nevertheless joins the RAF's Bomber Command in WWII. Shot down, he falls in love with his German nurse before losing contact in a POW camp. After the war he searches for her amid the ruins of two German cities.