A gentle, touching romance set against the last months of peace and the first chaotic months of World War II, The English Air is one of D.E. Stevenson's most poignant and profound novels. It is the story of Franz von Heiden--son of a high Nazi official and an English mother who died when he was a child--and Wynne Braithwaite, the lovely English girl whose family he visits on the eve of the war.

The English Air

A son makes a devastating choice. Franz von Heiden, son of a Nazi official and an English mother, comes to England early in 1938 to visit his English cousins – and to study them. He is both accepted and entertained by Wynne Braithwaite’s family and friends. But the peace and abundance which he finds about him are not what he had been taught to expect. These people are not the decadent enemy; their casual talk and happy lives betray no weakness. Franz is disturbed – his reports to his father at home are not what had been expected there. Finding himself in love with Wynne, he is further troubled at the thought of his mother’s broken life in Germany. Would Wynne suffer the same slow death? As tremendous events succeed each other – Munich, Czechoslovakia and war itself – Franz’s dilemma grows increasingly acute. His final devastating choice is a thrilling climax to a moving book. Written in 1940, this book is a fascinating insight into the interwar years.

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