Love defies all odds...

When Nicola first arrives in London, she is only eleven years old, just off a children's Famine Train from Austria, and plastered with tags and labels identifying who she is.

She refers to herself as "an ex-enemy" of England -- her father, left behind, is a colonel who served with the Hussars -- and awaits someone to come and take charge of her in this strange new city.

When Kathleen Conroy arrives at Victoria Station to pick Nicola up, she doesn't come alone -- her nephew, Peter, accompanies her.

For Nicola, the romance of life seems to begin from the very moment that Peter Conroy, nineteen, Irish, and adventurous, finds her on the platform.

For Peter, meeting the young Austrian girl marks the beginning of the rest of his life; fired from his job, he sets out to see the world and, in the process, discovers the real thrill of living.

Years later, Peter and Nicola are reunited, and come to see each other in a new light.

Nicola, grown into a beautiful and thoughtful young woman, immediately captures Peter's attention, while in return, Nicola senses in Peter something that none of her other beaux have been able to offer.

Theirs is an idyllic love in an unstable time that suffers from the harshness of the reality.

Undiminished by years of separation, Peter and Nicola rekindle their love in the face of impossible odds.

Theirs is a poignant, heartening love story, set against a background of teeming London, the green Home counties, the sodden Midlands, and a shabby but enchanting Vienna.

Fly Away Blackbird is a bittersweet tale of romance that struggles against all odds to survive.

Praise for Jerrard Tickell

"This novel has a worldly sophistication mingled with a lightness of touch that makes whatever is mentioned a little pleasanter than reality" -- Sylvia Lynd, Book Society News

"A most dexterous performance" -- Morning Post "Quickly moving, full of life, sparkling, delightfully out of the ordinary" -- Ralph Straus, London Times.

Jerrard Tickell was born in Dublin and wrote his first book at just 18. He was a member of the Royal Army Service Corps. His official duties took him all over the world including Egypt and practically every port in the Near East. His books, a number of which have been made into successful movies, include Moon Squadron, Island Rescue, and Hussar Honeymoon.

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