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As soon as I saw the cover of this book, I knew I just had to read it. Oddly, it wasn’t until I actually started reading this book that I remembered a time when I was 14 or 15 my Dad took me to an airshow as a father/daughter outing about three hours� drive from where we lived. I was completely fascinated.

I was only about 7 pages into the story when I first cried. There were also thrilling, exciting moments while reading, and very sad, even tragic moments. It reads like a fabulously well-written novel although it is far more than that.

The stories that are pulled together throughout various fronts and places (England, France, Italy, Africa, and the Far East are some of those places) during World War II feature a wide array of pilots and all of them had their stories to tell involving the Spitfire.

The Spitfire’s history began as an answer to the Luftwaffe planes that were able to maneuver well in flight and fire on bombers and other planes of the RAF. Its unique wing-shape and superb aerodynamics are its trademark, and gave the plane its ability to quickly move out of the way of attacking planes. To a man, (and woman), the veterans (RAF and later, all of the Allies) who shared their stories with the author had nothing but praise for the compact airplane with a huge heart and astounding athleticism.

We learn how it was first built, and also how it evolved throughout the course of the war. We learn about one pilot who had been attacked by roughly a dozen enemy aircraft yet emerged from the attack to tell the tale. This happened to him not once, but twice during the war in two different theatres, and as he takes us through the action, I had to admire both his skill as a pilot (which he underplayed), and the incredible engineering of the Spitfires he flew that were so responsive they were often described by pilots as “an extension of myself.�

It intrigued me that the Air Transport Auxiliary had both women and men pilots. Women fought for and received equal pay with the male pilots � most likely the first instance in the 20th Century where equal pay at work occurred between women and men.

I was also fascinated by the stories of some of these pilots, well into their 90’s when interviewed, who were given an opportunity to take a tour and/or ride once more in their beloved Spitfires. There are also photographs, and one of them had this caption: “ATA pilot Mary Ellis celebrates her 100th birthday in 2017 by taking the controls of a twin-seat Spitfire over Sussex. Shadowing her is one of the Spitfires she delivered during WWII while in the Air Transport Auxiliary.� The women and men of the ATA delivered aircraft from where they were manufactured to the air bases where they would depart for their missions.

This book was so well written that it was the first time I really understood the various movements of the war. Perhaps I needed a bird’s-eye view to see it all more clearly; although maybe I should say a Spitfire’s view.

Thank you to Simon & Schuster Canada and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review an ARC of this novel, and to the author, John Nichol, for writing it. Its publication date is October 29, 2019.