The Flyer — Stuart Harrison

The first book in The Pitsford Series. Set against the background of an English country house, and the skies above France during the First World War, The Flyer is both a love story and a story about how the struggle to overcome adversity can determine a person's true character. William Reynolds is born the son of a rural blacksmith in England before the turn of the twentieth century. After suffering a horrific injury, a quirk of fate results in William receiving his education at a prestigious private school, where his background singles him out for merciless bullying by his contemporaries. During a time when society is strictly defined by the social class a person is born into, William becomes an outsider. Educated, but penniless, he struggles to succeed in either work or love until, through his interest in the fledgling field of aviation, he meets an aristocratic aviator, Christopher Horsham, and Christopher's childhood friend, Elizabeth. The complex relationship triangle that forms between these three people is at the centre of a story that takes place in a social landscape where each of them is forced to make choices between love and loyalty. With the advent of war, what begins as an adventurous era in flight, with a distinct air of chivalry and romance, soon becomes a struggle in deadly earnest above the fields of France. William, Elizabeth and Christopher will again face difficult choices, and this time the repercussions will reveal who each of them has really become.