** This electronic edition includes 2 black-and-white maps and 66 black-and-white photographs ** One of the many wartime airmen who documented his day to day experiences in a diary, was RCAF navigator Jan Gellner. Prior to the outbreak of the Second World War, Jan was a lawyer practicing in the Czechoslovak town of Brno. With the outbreak of hostilities on the European continent, he went to Canada and trained as an air observer on the first course of the fledgling British Commonwealth Air Training Plan. Jan Gellner began his operational tour with No. 311 Czechoslovak (B) Squadron flying the venerable Vickers Wellington. It did not take long for Jan's abilities to shine, especially as an instructor in astro navigation. For his farrowing role in the attack on the German cruise Prinz Eugen, Jan received the coveted Distinguished Flying Cross. After an incredible 37 operations over occupied France and Germany, he became Operational Tour Expired. Jan was selected for pilot training and went to Canada. During his postwar service with the RCAF, he had a distinguished career as an administrative officer, retiring in 1958. Now a civilian, Jan turned to writing and became one of Canada's most knowledgeable and sought after aviation and military affairs journalist." ** This electronic edition includes 2 black-and-white maps and 66 black-and-white photographs **

Ella Wellsley is not your typical teenager. Cancer left her mute, but not powerless. Trapped in a parallel dimension, Ella rallies her strength to join her family—her mother, Tessa, her grandpa Archie, and her magical boyfriend—in locating the cure to her illness. This cure is entangled in the fate of all worlds, and threatened by the presence of an evil Star anchored in the sea. The Star has thrown life everywhere into chaos—and it is Ella who holds the key to unlocking its mystery. Caught in a web of betrayal, mistaken identities, secrets, and love triangles, Ella, Tessa, and Archie must overcome their troubled pasts to ensure a future for all worlds. On this journey—armed with unearthly abilities and unexpected allies—each member of the Wellsley family will learn the power of love in the face of their greatest fears.

Between 1939 and 1945, the British public was spellbound by the martial endeavours and dashing style of the young men of the RAF, especially those with silvery fabric wings sewn above the breast pocket of their glamorous slate-blue uniform. Martin Francis provides the first scholarly study of the place of 'the flyer' in British culture during the Second World War. Examining the lives of RAF personnel, and their popular representation in literary and cinematic texts, he illuminates broader issues of gender, social class, national and racial identities, emotional life, and the creation of a national myth in twentieth-century Britain. In particular, Francis argues that the flyer's relationship to fear, aggression, loss of his comrades, bodily dismemberment, and psychological breakdown reveals broader ambiguities surrounding the dominant understandings of masculinity in the middle decades of the century. Despite his star appeal, cultural representations of the flyer encompassed both the gentle, chivalrous warrior and the uncompromising agent of destruction. Paying particular attention to the romantic universe of wartime aircrew, Francis reveals the extraordinary contrasts of their daily lives: dicing with death in the sky one moment, before sitting down to lunch with wives and children in the next. Male and female experiences during the war were not polarized and antithetical, but were complementary and interrelated, a conclusion which has implications for the history of gender in modern Britain that reach well beyond either the specialized military culture of the wartime RAF or the chronological parameters of the Second World War.

“An atmospheric, multilayered, sex-positive romance.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review) After an awkward first encounter, Birdie and Daniel are forced to work together in a Seattle hotel where a famous author leads a mysterious and secluded life in this romantic contemporary novel from the author of Alex, Approximately. Mystery-book aficionado Birdie Lindberg has an overactive imagination. Raised in isolation and homeschooled by strict grandparents, she’s cultivated a whimsical fantasy life in which she plays the heroic detective and every stranger is a suspect. But her solitary world expands when she takes a job the summer before college, working the graveyard shift at a historic Seattle hotel. In her new job, Birdie hopes to blossom from introverted dreamer to brave pioneer, and gregarious Daniel Aoki volunteers to be her guide. The hotel’s charismatic young van driver shares the same nocturnal shift and patronizes the waterfront Moonlight Diner where Birdie waits for the early morning ferry after work. Daniel also shares her appetite for intrigue, and he’s stumbled upon a real-life mystery: a famous reclusive writer—never before seen in public—might be secretly meeting someone at the hotel. To uncover the writer’s puzzling identity, Birdie must come out of her shell…discovering that the most confounding mystery of all may be her growing feelings for the elusive riddle that is Daniel.

Beth Tarrington has it all: a gorgeous fiancé , a lucrative career, the latest model car, and a high-priced condo. On top of that, the Tarrington name opens every door in town. So why is she so discontent? When everything falls apart in Beth' s life, will she finally find the strength to stand on her own two feet? Is God really willing to stand by her side, even after she's ignored Him for so long? When Jason Brooks meets Beth, his head tells him to run in the opposite direction. Beth is a high-society snob engaged to another man, and he' s not sure where she stands with God. So why does God keep bringing the two of them together? Can these two find love, in spite of everything that stands in their way?

"Daisy Herself" by Will E. Ingersoll is the story of the titular character Daisy. Shortly before the events of the book, she runs away with a young man whom she loves, and from there, the course of her life is forever changed. Finding work, attending dances, and all the other things that come along with finding one's place in the world and in society area all described in this book as this upbeat and vivacious girl becomes a woman.