"None Stood Taller The Final Year" is the second in the "None Stood Taller" series.
Step back once again into Britain's wartime past. Relive the final year of WW2 and this inspirational story of courage, life and love - the greatest love story of World War Two.
Lily and Edward are two people united by the war but separated by the social divide that stands between them. The story continues from June 6th 1944, as we follow the lives of Lily and her two great friends, Fiona and Dotty. The sun has finally set upon one of the most momentous events in British history. For Lily Heywood and Edward, Lord Middlebourne, D-Day marked the culmination of three years of intensive research and ultimately crushing responsibility. SOE Station M has completed its work. This might have signalled the end of the intelligence unit's wartime involvement. Events, however, conspire otherwise. Hitler's vengeance weapons prove to be a threat worthy of Station M's special skills. This is the world that shapes their lives.
Lily knows she can only commit to one of the two men in her life, her future remains as uncertain as ever. When a V1 flying bomb leaves Edward critically injured, only destiny can decide her future. A part of that future was waiting on a launch ramp in the Pas-de-Calais. Once more, destiny decides when the bringer of death will strike at Lily's heart. From the depths of despair, she is offered a new future from beyond the grave. The final year proves to be the longest of the war for Lily. When it was finally over, the people of Great Britain came together with the greatest outpouring of emotion the nation has ever seen. May the 8th 1945 is the day that changes Lily's life forever.
The third book in the series "None Stood Taller The Price of Freedom" follows Dotty's wartime experiences over the same period of time as, with Lily's support, she grows in stature from being a member of the Women's Land Army to a brave agent of the Special Operations Executive, or SOE.
Turnham, Peter: - "An "unlikely author," I came to writing during enforced rest after snapping my Achilles tendon. In sheer desperation of boredom, I said to my wife Carol, "I'm going to write a novel." Had I said I was going to climb Mount Everest (wearing my leg brace) it would have been equally implausible! Despite being a dyslexic with the resultant short attention span and glacial reading pace, I have found the challenge immensely rewarding and enjoyable, with five novels to my name. Initially, I started with merely the words "Chapter One" but eventually I used a character based on a larger-than-life friend. The story developed spontaneously because I could visualise exactly what my character would say. The other characters then seemed to come and sit beside me, helping me to write their stories. The first title is "Autumn Daffodils - Charlie's Story," quickly followed by the continuation of the same story "Autumn Daffodils - Joanna's Story." Both are achieving modest success, though they are hard to market, not fitting into an easily recognised genre. I then chose a more focused genre, World War Two. Though I live in the Cotswolds, I was born and brought up in London. I used to listen to my parents' conversations about having lived through the Blitz and became very much aware of what they lived through. Thus "None Stood Taller" began, about Lily, a young woman who loses everything in the Blitz. Her incredible journey takes her to the very top of the British wartime establishment and Special Operations Executive (SOE), covering the period from 1941 to D-Day in 1944. Subsequently two more books in the series have been published: "None Stood Taller, The Final Year" covering Lily's life and loves from D-Day to VE-Day, and "None Stood Taller, the Price of Freedom" which is about Lily's good friend Dotty and the war years from her perspective as an SOE field agent. Just published, August 2024, is "Parallel Lives - a Story of the Greatest Generation", which is an inspiring tale about Emma, a doctor at St Thomas's Hospital, London and Roger, a police detective, transporting the reader to when the Hospital was bombed, also the Balham Tube Station disaster, and a killer who roamed the darkened streets of London under the cover of the Blackout."
