LOVE IN THE TIME OF WAR: FORBIDDEN ROMANCE TAKES FLIGHT IN NEW HISTORICAL NOVEL

Set against the smoky skyline of 1940s Melbourne, a new novel is capturing the ache of wartime longing and the quiet rebellion of a woman who refuses to play by society’s rules.

Flight, the second novel by award-winning Australian author Anne Vines, plunges headfirst into a love story born in the shadows of World War II, one that spans oceans, social divides, and deeply entrenched expectations.

At its centre is Faye Beauregard, the headstrong daughter of a powerful Melbourne family, whose well-manicured world begins to unravel the night she meets Peter, a battle-hardened American fighter pilot freshly landed on Australian soil.

Their chance meeting at the Windsor Hotel sparks a forbidden romance that challenges everything they’ve been taught to believe about class, duty, and desire.

Peter is bruised by war and haunted by ghosts. Faye is shackled by her social standing and an unromantic engagement to Melbourne’s most “eligible” bachelor.

What unfolds between them is not just a love affair, but a daring act of defiance in a city still clinging to old-world rules.

With its richly drawn characters and evocative setting, Flight doesn’t just revisit Melbourne’s wartime past—it interrogates it. It asks what it means to be a hero, not just on the battlefield, but in the intimate choices we make at home.

It’s a story of invisible battles—of women who loved, resisted, and lost in silence.

Early praise calls Flight “an impossible and impossibly compelling love story” and “a glamorous, mismatched couple facing more than family opposition in a fractured Melbourne.”

Published by Glass House Books, Flight is now available in paperback and eBook from all major booksellers.