The Burning Blue

by James Holland

Joss Lambert has always been a loner, constrained by a secret from his past, until he finds friendship and solace firstly with Guy Liddell, a friend from school, and then with Guy's family, who welcome him into their farmhouse home. Joss increasingly comes to depend upon the Liddells and treats Alvesdon Farm as the one place where he feels not only appreciated but also truly happy. The idyll cannot last. With war looming, Joss is forced to confront the past. He escapes through flying, becoming a fighter pilot in the RAF. But with the onset of war, even the Liddells's world is crumbling. As Joss is fighting for his life in the Battle of Britain, so he begins to fall madly in love with Stella - Guy's twin - but with tragic consequences. Leaving England and the Liddells far behind, he continues to fly amid the sand and heat of North Africa, until his hopes and dreams are seemingly shattered for good

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, War, Aviation, Historical, World War II, Romance

530 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Librarian note:
There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name

James Holland was born in Salisbury, Wiltshire, and studied history at Durham University. He has worked for several London publishing houses and has also written for a number of national newspapers and magazines. Married with a son, he lives near Salisbury.

Reviews

[Ben Kane · Rating 5 out of 5]

The subject matters of this book - WW2, the Battle of Britain, a love story - all appeal to me, so it was natural for me to gravitate to buying it. Of course that didn't mean I would enjoy it. To say that I enjoyed the book, however, is an understatement. I really loved it. From the first pages, which begin in the deserts of North Africa, I was drawn into the world of Joss Lambert, the tortured hero, and his friends.

Clearly, Holland has a deep knowledge of life in the 1930s and 40s, both civil and military, because every page oozes with authenticity - to this amateur eye at least. While parts of it are deeply moving, even tragic, I found it a heartwarming homage to courage, honour, friendship and love. I thought it was absolutely tremendous, and on a par with the excellent Piece of Cake, by Derek Robinson. Highly recommended, and five solid stars out of five.

[Zachary Huckel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Right. I am confused, befuddled, disappointed but also strangely satisfied by this book. It’s like If you thought one day, I wonder what cocaine, meth, and bleach tastes like. You enjoy the drugs and the high they give you, and then the bleach comes from behind with a baseball bat and smashes your emotions and expectations to bits. Shocked, and slightly embarrassed, you finish the book. My first remark was. “Well that was bloody weird”

I don’t want to be disingenuous to James Holland, I love him, but this book was odd. Let me explain.

James Holland is a bit of a dull man, and he writes slightly dull books with such a firehose of stats and figures that makes me frightened to think about how many hours it would have taken to source them all. I like his books because I have very small dull tendencies and so I like his books. His historical works.
You can imagine my surprise when I found this book and realised that James Holland, THE JAMES HOLLAND. THAT James holland that will spend an entire paragraph listing regiment stats, had written a FICTIONAL ROMANCE. Anyway I started reading it and finished it today. I enjoyed it, it was well set and researched (it’s James holland so). I found it odd that he had put swearing in it, to begin with. I don’t care much about swearing but I find novels with swearing are usually laughable and awkward. And he also decided to try his hand at writing a sex scene or two, which I found mightily funny and strange to think that this star obsessed historian, wrote THAT into a book. Anyway I don’t think he did a particularly good job of that sort of thing, nor do I think it added anything to the overall storyline. I found the build up of the relationships a bit shallow and it jumped around too easily.
He also decided to do a weird time jumping thing where the first chapters were set at one point, and then the following ones were set earlier, etc. we find out his girlfriend breaks up with him in the first chapter, and then he spends the rest of the book building up the backstory of Joss in the RAF during the Battle of Britain, and how he got hitched with Stella, and then the final chapter, she calls off the engagement and it ends with Joss returning from his posting in Africa really chuffed that his girl isn’t marrying someone else cos she can’t cope with him not being there. There were some date errors too.

I’ve seen a side of James I didn’t know existed and I think he needs to work on it, or stick to studying troop movements and wartime stats, figures, strategy. Etc.

[Hannah Polley · Rating 3 out of 5]

It took me a long time to care for the characters in this book, I felt that it started off very slowly. However, it did eventually reel me in and I did end up rooting for Joss and Stella.

As we were nearing the end of the book and Stella had chosen someone else, I felt that Joss would die in his plane or maybe kill himself which I think would have had an impactful ending.

I think the problem with this book, like all war books written after the time, is that you just cannot possibly describe the horror if you didn't live through it. However, the book gave it a decent go.

[Dora Okeyo · Rating 4 out of 5]

James Holland description of life in the late 1930s and accounts of air battle is deeply moving.

Indulge me for a while as I tell you about the lead character, Joss Lambert. Being a loner- with a mother who loves her social life more than spending time with her son, he finds himself among the Liddells courtesy of his best friend Guy. He is introduced to Stella- Guy's twin and has this huge crush on her. But, that's not it- the story is set at the onset of the Second World War with the Germans up for a fight, and Joss has this secret guilt that always wears him down. His father was German, and he cannot help but wonder how different his life would have been had he grown up there- and which side he'd be battling for.
He depends of the Liddells as his family- and what follows is an account of his time at war.

I liked two parts in this story: When Guy was acting like he owned Joss and wait for it...the time when Joss stood up to him!

Yes...you'd have to rush to page 436 for that. It was my ultimate part because Joss was out there getting shot at and picking his friends bodies after crashes and when he gets to visit the Liddells Guy showered him with endless snide comments! I had this (o_o) look while reading that!

I was moved by this story because of Stella's love for Joss. He was out there being fired at and all she had to do was hope that he would return to her.
In most cases people worry about the soldiers but forget their loved ones- the ones who pray and cringe when anyone knocks on their door because it could either be a flag or your loved one...but more often than not, it's bad news. The not-knowing part hurts.

I loved that this story reminded me of that- in how Stella is forced to accept things she cannot change. She finds her strength in their mother, Celia, who having lost her husband and son- decides to carry on.

You'll feel a lot of emotions reading this book. Pain, loss, sorrow, love, joy, understanding and lots of pain and tears towards the end, and just when you think it's the end and nothing good will ever come to pass...life takes an unexpected turn, and there's a glimmer of hope.

[Redfox5 · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought this book started slowly. It opened with an air battle and battles never keep me that interested but once we started to know the characters, this book really started to shine.

This book follows Joss as he goes from a Cambridge student to RAF pilot. It looks at how people changed because of the war, how relationships were strained and also showed how utterly helpless people must of felt.

I'm beginning to understand why this generation refers to the younger generation as snowflakes. We whine about all sorts of rubbish, and they had to watch their friends and family die all around them. The scene where Joss watches Buck explode and his blood covers Joss's plane was heartbreaking. Also when Tommy disappeared, I was crying my eyes out.

This really was a gripping book and I would recommend it to fans of historical fiction set in World War II.

[Sean · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really good plot and characters. Slow developing but the way Holland interweaves two plots from two different times is masterful. Not quite a page turner but offers a true sense of what life was like in the time period.

[John Willis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Roared through this and did a trial BYOB podcast for Anna on it. Richard rated it as one of few books read more than once, and I can see why. Sweeping but detailed, great descriptions of the flying and battle scenes, but never too much. And really great relationships. Will put in the re-read pile.

[Misha Herwin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Set in WW2 this is a great read. It follows the story of Joss Lambert who flies Spitfires in the Battle of Britain. If you're interested in flying this is for you, but if you want a human dimension to your novel The Burning Blue does not disappoint. Works well on all counts. Loved it.

[glenn medler · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great read

Great read, unable to put it down. Well researched and a compelling story. I was glued to it to the very end.

[Frances Dillistone · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good all round read.

Air war in its whole entity. The good the bad and the normal, from a very clever author. Enjoy it.

[John Powell · Rating 3 out of 5]

Book Review: The Burning Blue by James Holland
Sometimes, reading a novel becomes like mountaineering, one presses on for no other reason but that it is there. Echoing in the mind are the words of John Humphries, host of the popular BBC quiz-show, Mastermind, ‘I’ve started so I’ll finish.’ So one stumbles on, trying to ignore the anachronisms and doubtful facts, to experience a gradually increasing level of interest and a happy ending, which though anticipated, comes from an unexpected direction.

Authors are safest writing about a recent era they have lived through, or the distant past beyond the memory of living readers, otherwise they run the risk of being told: it wasn’t like that. In writing about the time immediately before, and during, the Second World War, James Holland is covering a time still within living memory. Even though he consulted many people who remembered these times, the atmosphere he creates is still distorted by the lens of his own time, especially with regard to the soul searching of the central character and his and others’ psychological insights.

The language, too, is sometimes anachronistic, with 1980s expressions like ‘the bottom line,’ mentioned at least twice, and ‘Do you want the good news or the bad?’ Also not heard until the period of the BBC comic programme, The Goons (1954), is the imaginary disease: ‘the lurgy.’ Some factual statements are doubtful; can a lion be killed with a shot gun? Or a single company of troops lose 160 men in one action? And worst of all, Scrabble could not have been played during the Battle of Britain as the name wasn’t invented until 1948, or the game sold in England until 1955. These errors are not too important in themselves but cast doubt in other areas where the reader may not be well informed.

One immediate problem with The Burning Blue is the timeline, which jumps backwards and forwards in an irritating and confusing manner, inducing in the reader a longing for a familiar chronological progression. The author’s temporal acrobatics seem particularly redundant when the narration at a later date covers in memory what transpired at the earlier time but inducing inevitable ambiguities.

The central theme of the book is a young pilot’s guilt over having German blood. This situation arises in every war and is resolved, as the central character gradually comes to realise, by understanding that one’s essential ethnic identity is determined more by nurture than by nature, although this mode of expression was not common at the time. He also comes to realise that ‘young Germans were not so very different from young Englishmen.’

This book has won major literary prizes, which raises the question: are the criteria of the judges the same as those of the lay reader? The judges must finish the book to complete their task, whereas one suspects many ordinary readers might be tempted to give up after the first few pages. They can be assured, however, that on balance, it is worth pressing on.

[Thom Swennes · Rating 4 out of 5]

“It was amazing how life could be changed by just a handful of carefully chosen words.” This is a quote from The Burning Blue by James Holland that serves as a suitable partial description of this story. This tale skips back and forth in time. The time ranges from 1936 to 1942. This six-year window observes and records the transformation of a nation and its peoples as it moves from a short lived peace to another nightmare war. In 1936 England was still reeling from the Great War and busy trying to rebuild her empire and the ordered and privileged way of life that is synonymous and tantamount with Victorian England. This attempt at turning back the clock and reestablishing Britain’s world domination is waylaid and then snuffed out as Hitler and Nazi Germany unleashes their deadly forces on Europe and the world. Joss Lambert, an Englishman born on the fringes of society and protecting a secret. He manages to attend all the right schools without the wealth and pedigree of his fellow students. Nevertheless, when war finally does break out he is in a good position to serve his country as a fighter pilot. This is a book that covers every base. It is foremost an account of a time when a few men and their Spitfires were all that stood between Germany and European domination. It is also the account of the death of an age and way of life and the consequent rebirth of its successor. It is lastly but hardly leastly, a story of love lost and the inevitable consequences.

[Nicki · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was slow, slow, slow. Barely anything happened for a long, long time, which didn't make for an entertaining read.

The subject matter is right up my street, so I was hoping to love this book, but I really didn't. The main character, Joss, was hard to like and his love affair with his best friend's sister is completely insipid. The supporting characters like Tommy were more interesting than the main characters of Joss and Stella. The dialogue read as if it had come straight from a 1940s B movie rather than real people.

The better parts of the book focused on the aerial battles. With these passages, you begin to get a sense of what it felt like to be in the cockpit of a Spitfire during the Battle of Britain. For me, though, this wasn't enough to bring the novel as a whole to life.

[Chris Wray · Rating 4 out of 5]

James Holland is a first-rate popular historian, and this book proves that he's not half bad at writing fiction! If his Jack Tanner books are Commando comics in prose form, this is an altogether more serious and layered novel. It starts slowly, but the author's knowledge of the war in general, and of the Battle of Britain in particular, shines through. This adds authenticity to his descriptions of aerial combat, which are breathless and terrifying. His love for Wiltshire, and especially the area around Salisbury, also stands out, bringing a sense of nostalgia for an era that was passing away as Britain geared up for total war. Young love, loss and coming of age are, of course, themes that are well trodden in fiction, but in the end, I was really rooting for Joss and Stella. I'm not sure what I was expecting when I started reading this, but I loved it.

[Lysergius · Rating 3 out of 5]

Having grown up reading real factual accounts of the battle of Britain written by ex-fighter pilots I found this difficult to accept to begin with. However the descriptions of the flying and dog fights have been based on logs and diaries which lends an air of authenticity, although without the immediacy of personal experience.

The description of the developing love affair with Stella is innocuous and there is no real sense of passion as befits an English gentleman, which of course Joss Lambert is despite his secret.

A decent read, but hardly a great novel.

[Richard Jacoby · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although the book was slow, I found myself getting swept up in it. Interesting characters do what they do during the Battle of Britain aerial war. I almost had to drop this one to 3 stars over the abrupt ending. After spending so much time slowly revealing plot details, I did not understand Holland's desire to end things so quickly.

[Franco Forleo · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am so pleased to have persevered after what was a slow start. Truly a great read filled with facts for those interested in the Battle of Britain and the lives lead by the young men who defended and turned the tides of war.

[Pattie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good read but slow.

[Simon]

An excellent addition to this genre.

[George · Rating 4 out of 5]

An engaging, though romanticized, story of the RAF during World War II. Interesting details about the Battle of Britain, with vivid accounts of dogfights.

[Hilary Marson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful book - highly recommend .

[Frank Budden · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic account of late 1930's Britain at war. The amount of times I've read this goes into double figures...

[Philip · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good read - well researched and solid historical fiction.