Soon, Ollie meets Susan and the birds she has trained, but before they can explore their feelings for one another, Ollie becomes caught up in the fighting while Susan becomes involved in Source Columba, the real-life intelligence operation that featured the air-drop of hundreds of homing pigeons in occupied France. Meanwhile, Ollie Evans, an American crop-duster pilot living in Buxton, Maine, has decided to try to join the Allied effort as a Royal Air Force flier. Susan Shepard and her grandfather Bertie raise pigeons on a farm in Epping, outside of London and near the North Weald Airfield, and they rush to their shelter each time the Luftwaffe passes over. It’s autumn of 1940, and the carpet bombings of London have begun. Hlad’s debut snares readers with its fresh angle on the blitz of WWII, focusing on the homing pigeons used by the British, and the people who trained and cared for them. 'Hlad adeptly drives home the devastating civilian cost of the war.' Yet Duchess will become an unexpected lifeline, relaying messages between Susan and Ollie as war rages on-and proving, at last, that hope is never truly lost.

Soon a friendship between Ollie and Susan deepens, but when his plane is downed behind enemy lines, both know how remote the chances of reunion must be. Those that do will bring home crucial information. His quest brings him to Epping and the National Pigeon Service, where Susan is involved in a new, covert mission to air-drop hundreds of homing pigeons in German-occupied France. Thousands of miles away in Buxton, Maine, young crop-duster pilot Ollie Evans decides to join Britain's Royal Air Force. Hatched from an egg that Susan incubated in a bowl under her grandfather's desk lamp, Duchess shares a special bond with Susan and an unusual curiosity about the human world. All her birds are extraordinary to Susan-loyal, intelligent, beautiful-but none more so than Duchess.

After losing her parents to influenza as a child, Susan found comfort in raising homing pigeons with Bertie.

Enemy fighter planes blacken the sky around the Epping Forest home of Susan Shepherd and her grandfather, Bertie. It is September 1940-a year into the war-and as German bombs fall on Britain, fears grow of an impending invasion. Inspired by fascinating, true, yet little-known events during World War II, The Long Flight Home is a testament to the power of courage in our darkest hours-a moving, masterfully written story of love and sacrifice.

The Long Flight Home by Alan Hlad