Into The Blue

'A cracker, twisting, turning and exploding with real skill.' - Daily Mirror Harry Barnett is a middle-aged failure. Leading a shabby existence in the shadow of a past disgrace, he is reduced to caretaking a friend's villa on the island of Rhodes and working in a bar to earn his keep. Then a guest at the villa - a young woman he had instantly and innocently warmed to - disappears on a mountain peak. Under suspicion of her murder, Harry stumbles on a set of photographs taken in the weeks before her disappearance. Obsessed by the mystery that has changed his life and determined to clear his name, he begins to trace back the movements and encounters that led to the moment when she vanished into the blue. The trail leads him back to England, to a world he thought he had left for ever - and a past he has tried desperately to forget.

Award-winning journalist Andrea Curtis explores the shadows cast over her family by a century-old shipwreck and uncovers the tragedy, disaster and promise of early life on the Great Lakes. Every family has a story, passed down through generations. For Andrea Curtis that story is the wreck of the SS J.H. Jones. In 1906, the late-November swells of Georgian Bay erupt into a blinding storm, sinking the Jones and claiming the lives of all on board. Left in the wake is Captain Jim Crawford’s one-year-old daughter, Eleanor, who faces a daunting future of poverty and isolation. But Eleanor emerges from her childhood determined to leave behind the restrictions of her small town. She plunges into the excitement of Jazz-era California and 1930s Montreal, struggling to become a poet and a writer. Almost a century later, Andrea knows her grandmother Eleanor only as a sophisticated, respected Montreal matriarch. Until, while researching Jim Crawford’s role in the Jones tragedy, she discovers that Eleanor had a hidden past. Using family stories, archival research and fictionalized re-enactments, Andrea Curtis narrates her family’s history, and that of the place they once called home. Into the Blue shimmers with Curtis’s rich and reflective voice, recreating a little-known but formative time when Canadians persevered through unthinkable loss, violence and disaster, and brings to life a grand era of Great Lakes history. This is a worthy peer to such beloved memoirs as David Macfarlane’s The Danger Tree and Roy MacGregor’s A Life in the Bush.

"Tai Talagi and Ollie Birkstrom have been inseparable since they met as kids surfing the North Shore of Oahu. Now they live with their best friends and Ollie's kid brother in a pulled-together family, all of them piled into a run-down beach house. They share cooking, bills, and the saltwater running in their veins. Tai's spent years shutting down any feelings for Ollie. They are friends. Their family depends on them. But with Ollie off on his first world tour and his dreams of a pro surfing career finally within reach, their steady world shifts. Is the relationship worth risking their friendship, their family, their dreams, for a chance at something terrifying and beautiful and altogether new?"--Page 4 of cover.

The Chicago Sun Times praises "Into the Blue is Susan Edsall's fascinating chronicle of the fight to get her father back into his beloved Big Sky...an engagingly readable testament to an everyday courage....Salted with hilarious memories of Edsall family life, peppered with touching reminiscences of flight with her father, [Edsall] mixes the positive with the painful until it's not only palatable but also poignant." Three years ago, Susan Edsall's father, a rebuilder and pilot of antique airplanes, suffered a devastating stroke that left him unable to read, write, speak, tell time, understand the alphabet---or fly. The doctors told Susan the best her family could hope for was that he would learn to play checkers. Susan knew if her dad couldn't fly, he'd just as soon not breathe, so she chose another path. Battling the pessimistic conclusion of the experts---and her own looming fears---she and her sister, Sharon, aka the Blister Sisters, decided to take matters into their own hands. With no medical training but double doses of determination, they bushwhacked their own rehab program and got their father back behind the controls of his beloved open-cockpit biplane and into the air. Susan Edsall's Into the Blue is a powerful family memoir about two feisty sisters from Montana who bring their father back to life---and discover themselves in the process. Inspiring, gritty, and often hilarious, it's also the story of anyone who has ever fought back from a dire prognosis to pursue a cherished dream.

Newspaper reporter Justin Weaver had originally hoped to use his job at the small-town Bloomington Times as a springboard to something bigger. But after a couple years on the job, dreams of moving to New York or Chicago seem as far away as ever, especially when his newest assignment is covering a memorial service in the rural village of Masontown. A heroic war veteran and county sheriff for fifty years, Alvin "Pop" McDaniel, Masontown's legendary local hero, was a friend and benefactor to all. Justin is sure the story will be straightforward, but things get complicated when his girlfriend and fellow reporter, Belinda Fanelli, shows up to rock the boat-and Belinda rocks it well. As he researches the story and the memorial ceremony unfolds, Justin has a funny feeling. He suspects Pop wasn't as perfect as everyone thinks he was. With the help of Belinda and their inside source Andy Kline, a local reporter who proves to be a useful ally, Justin goes on a thorough hunt for the truth. However, digging through the life of a dead man can be dangerous-especially if the dead man had something to hide.

Into the Blue is widely regarded as a literary classic. Originally published in 1929, and 44 years since its latest publication, Grub Street reintroduces you to Norman Macmillan’s insightful and gripping book about his experiences as a pilot during the First World War. Wing Commander Norman Macmillan, OBE, MC, AFC, DL, was born on 9 August 1892 in Glasgow. After serving sixteen months in the Highland Light Infantry, he joined the RFC in 1916. He learned to fly at Netheravon, and in 1917 went to 45 Squadron on 1½ Strutters. Norman flew many missions on this type and claimed two victories before 45 were re-equipped with Camels in August 1917; Norman then gained his first Camel victory in the same month they arrived. On 11th September he twice claimed Fokker Triplanes out of control during two separate engagements in the space of a few minutes. Macmillan went on to claim nine victories in all. After being injured in an unfortunate accident on 6th January 1918 he did not see further combat and returned to England to become a flight instructor. After his experience in the First World War, he was closely associated with flying for many years and also became an enthusiastic writer of aviation books; of which, Into the Blue is the best. In 1925 Norman was the first person to make an emergency landing at Heathrow, which was then a row of cottages. During World War Two he became wing commander war correspondent, before retiring to Cornwall, where he became Deputy Lord Lieutenant of that county. Norman died on 5 August 1976 aged 83. Norman Macmillan was decorated with the Military Cross for conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty in 1918 and was also later awarded the prestigious Air Force Cross.

The sleepy little town of Sweet Water, Alabama, provides the backdrop to this tale of adventure. Lincoln Beck’s avid enthusiasm for his childhood comics of space exploration fuels and guides his dream of becoming an astronaut. Supported by his best friend, Rose, he embarks upon a path to try and fulfil his vision. From the idyllic summers of their youth, together, they commence a journey that will lead them into lifelong bonds with a dopey looking wandering Bassett hound, encountered one summer, and a squad of young hopefuls from the United States Air Force basic military training ‘class of 58’. The journey is not without some rocky roads but true friendship and love light their path as Lincoln strives to accomplish the requirements needed to be considered for the Apollo space programme.

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