Fallen Skies

Terrific novel set in the Roaring Twenties, reissued to accompany Philippa Gregory’s bestselling novel, The Other Boleyn Girl

Lily Valance wants to forget the war. She's determined to enjoy the world of the 1920s, with its music, singing, laughter and pleasure. When she meets Captain Stephen Winters, a decorated hero back from the Front, she's drawn to his wealth and status. In Lily he sees his salvation – from the past, from the nightmare, from the guilt at surviving the Flanders plains where so many were lost.

But it's a dream that cannot last. Lily has no intention of leaving her singing career. The hidden tensions of the respectable facade of the Winters household come to a head. Stephen's nightmares merge ever closer with reality and the truth of what took place in the mud and darkness brings him and all who loves him to a terrible reckoning…

Reviews

Praise for Philppa Gregory:

‘Compelling… Philippa Gregory reigns supreme as the mistress of historical drama.’ Today

‘Subtle and exciting.’ Daily Express

‘Written from instinct, not out of calculation, and it shows.’
Peter Ackroyd, The Times

‘For sheer pace and percussive drama it will take a lot of beating.’ Sunday Times

‘This is a story of violent love and unsettling passions. It will never let you rest for a page as you wait for the climax that must come for the people and the land’
Maeve Binchy

‘Amid all the social upheaval strides Beatrice Lacey, who, for singlemindedness, tempestuousness, passion, amorality, sensuality and plain old-fashioned evil, knocks Scarlet O’Hara into short cotton socks’ Evening Standard

‘One of Gregory's great strengths as a novelist is her ability to take familiar historical figures and flesh them into living breathing human beings. The Constant Princess is a worthy successor to her previous novels about the Tudors.’ Daily Express

‘Gregory's research is impeccable which makes her imaginative fiction all the more convincing.’ Daily Mail

‘Gregory is great at conjuring a Tudor film-set of gorgeous gowns and golden-lattered dining. She invokes some swoonsome images…while the politics are personal enough to remain pertinent.’ DailyTelegraph

‘The contemporary mistress of historical crime fiction is Philippa Gregory. Her novels are filled with strong, determined women who take their fate into their own hands…Gregory brings to life the sights, smells and textures of 16th-century England.’ Kate Mosse, Financial Times

About the author

Philippa Gregory is an internationally renowned author of historical novels. She holds a PhD in eighteenth-century literature from the University of Edinburgh. Works that have been adapted for television include A Respectable Trade, The Other Boleyn Girl and The Queen's Fool. The Other Boleyn Girl became a major film, starring Scarlett Johansson, Natalie Portman and Eric Bana. Philippa Gregory lives in the North of England with her family.