When John Franklin brings his plane down into Occupied France at the height of the Second World war, there are two things in his mind - the safety of his crew and his own badly injured arm. It is a stroke of unbelievable luck when the family of a French farmer risk their lives to offer the airmen protection. During the hot summer weeks that follow, the English officer and the daughter of the house are drawn inexorably to each other...

Herbert Ernest Bates (1905-1974), worked as a journalist and clerk on a local newspaper before publishing his first book, The Two Sisters. His most famous work of fiction is the bestselling Fair Stood the Wind for France (1944). Other well known novels include Purple Plain (1947), Jacaranda Tree (1949), Scarlet Sword (1950), and Love for Lydia (1952). The Darling Buds of May, the first of the popular Larkin family novels, was followed by A Breath of French Air (1959), When the Green Woods Laugh (1960), Oh, To Be in England! (1963) and A Little of What You Fancy (1970). His last works included the novel The Triple Echo (1971) and a collection of short stories, The Song of the Wren (1972).