Jacket for 'The Balloonist'

Publishers

UK - Simon & Schuster

The Balloonist

By James Long

Published Nov 2014

Lieutenant Sholto Lee, invalided out of the Royal Flying Corps, now has the most dangerous job on the Western Front, a balloon observer hanging under a gasbag filled with explosive hydrogen, 3,000 feet above the Ypres Salient, anchored by a slender cable. Swept across the lines after his balloon is damaged, Lee is hidden by Belgian farmers, escaping across the flooded delta at the English Channel. Back in the air, spotting for artillery and under attack, Lee has to make an impossible decision that threatens the death of the Belgian girl he has come to love.

Informed by vivid, forgotten memoirs, The Balloonist is a passionate story of an almost forgotten service.