Flight / Mishmish Press (ePub)

Can marriage survive war and temptation?

In the spring of 1976, the crackle of machine-gun fire resonates throughout Beirut, Lebanon. Finlay Fortin, a professor at the American University of Beirut, is anxious to leave the country with his family. But his wife Mo, an ambitious photojournalist, insists on staying, hoping to advance her career by documenting the battle-scarred city. And his fifteen-year-old daughter, Anouk, refuses to acknowledge the obvious danger and abandon the city she loves. When Anouk's friend Danny is kidnapped at gunpoint and Anouk is later trapped in a battle's crossfire, Finlay is desperate to protect his daughter. He forcibly takes her and flees Beirut, leaving his wife Mo behind.

Finlay and Anouk move to the rural uplands in southwest France, and Finlay is soon busy repairing the dilapidated house they live in. Anouk, however, bitterly struggles with missing her mother and the guilt she feels about Danny's abduction. As Finlay settles into his new life as the village baker, he finds himself drawn to his warmhearted neighbor, Colette. His marriage to Mo was cool and distant-after spending years deprived of affection, Finlay has found love.

When Finlay's wife decides to join her family in France, the news she brings about Danny, and the repercussions of the war will profoundly affect this family in ways no one could have anticipated. Jean Grant's second novel, Flight, is a "moving and timely exploration of the choices we make in parentting, in politics, and in love," writes A. Manette Ansay, author of Vinegar Hill.