Ghost Flight up for Pre-sale
E-book is aavailable
Okay, the book is finished, the links are live, and it will be released on June 30, 2025.
The other day was the cover reveal. Today’s note supplies the USA and UK links for the book. See below if you wish to use one of them. For those in other markets, please search “Ghost Flight, Jacobson.”
The print layout is a-building, and I am working on the Audible script for Ben Fife.
A few more steps to go, but we are almost there. Thank you for your support.
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BOOK DESCRIPTION
EmlynMara on FanFiction says of Ghost Flight:
Having cut my teeth on Helen MacInnis novels, this time period has always seemed very real to me, as have the lives and times of those who worked behind the scenes to aid the cause. This story is reminiscent of classic books by authors such as Leon Uris, Tom Clancy, Herman Wouk, Ken Follett, Alistair MacLean, and John le Carré. Well done.
Darkness Dims the Dawn
War’s clouds have choked the world for five years. Now, the Allies ready their great push to drive Hitler back to Berlin.
WAAF Section Officer Elizabeth Bennet and RAF Wing Commander Fitzwilliam Darcy have already done their bit. Both bear scars—seen and unseen—from their service. They have done much; now they will do more.
Elizabeth and Darcy step forward to undertake the deadliest of tasks: gathering intelligence behind German lines. They go knowing that the Gestapo’s destiny for captured Special Operations Executive agents was simple: a bullet.
World War II’s road to romance was bumpy. Cultivating affection’s fragile bloom while looking over their shoulders, Darcy and Elizabeth discover what is universal: the most ardent of loves.
Explore the dark, gritty world of Occupied France in 1944 at the shoulders of Fitzwilliam Darcy, SOE Agent Jeeves, and his radio operator, Elizabeth Bennet, Agent Madeline. This is a full-length novel of 116,000 words that asks how Darcy and Elizabeth might have served if they had been part of the Greatest Generation.
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How about an excerpt?
Late in the book, Darcy and Elizabeth, along with Captain and Madame Hemsath, arrive in Mulhouse, Occupied France, aboard the Anne Marie. The couples share a post-voyage dinner on deck.
This excerpt is © 2025 by Donald P. Jacobson. Reproduction is prohibited. Published in the United States of America.
From Chapter Fifty
Canal du Rhône au Rhin, Mulhouse, June 4, 1944
Anne Marie found her berth in the basin as the sun dropped to the western horizon. Elizabeth jumped onto the dock and made the bow rope tight against the bollard. Darcy did the honors at the stern. The Hemsaths smiled at one another, enjoying how the youngsters had taken to marine life. Tonight was for the celebration of another voyage’s end. Tomorrow’s sunrise would dawn on the backbreaking task of unloading four hundred sacks of coal, each weighing fifty-one kilos, over twenty tons. The labor draft had sent too many residents to work in German factories, but enough men remained in town to empty the hold at ten Pfennigs a bag. Hemsath could sit back and watch while Madame kept the tally.
Mother Hemsath, ably assisted by the young lady, had created a delectable spread of sausages, cheeses, fruit, and bread. Two bottles of Alsatian wine, chilled in a net bag lowered into the canal’s waters, supported the feast. Will and Captain Alois shut down the boiler, banking the fire and reducing the steam. By the time the two men had scrubbed off coal’s oily grime, the vault overhead had darkened into a rich twilight of regal purple with shoots of orange and rose brightening the bowl’s western rim.
They joined their ladies; Hemsath collected Madame in his arms for a toe-curling buss. Darcy contented himself by hugging Elizabeth and kissing her around the clock: forehead, cheek, chin, and cheek, 12-3-6-9. Her tempting squirm left him breathless.
The Hemsath’s china chest provided beautifully patterned Limoges to complement the meal. With full plates, the two couples settled on deck chairs to enjoy Alpine-fresh evening air. Working a boat through lock gates to climb and descend the canal’s length was a labor worthy of Heracles, and even if not, Darcy’s hearty appetite spoke of a full day’s work.
Lizzy smiled at Will but joked with everyone. “Be careful that you do not get between Fitzgerald and the table. You might lose a limb.”
Darcy played put-out. “Whatever can you mean, my dear Héloïse? I am only returning to my waistline what I worked off. And my sweet, lest my eye deceive me, I have had the pleasant experience of watching you bend over the table to refill your plate not once but twice.”
All four chuckled. The Captain carefully lowered his dish to the deck and brought out his pipe, which he filled from a darkly oiled leather pouch. A cloud of fragrant smoke swirled about his head. “So, tell me, Guillaume, were you a fighter in your sad country’s troubles? Did you battle the Black Watch in the streets of Dublin?” He nodded at Darcy’s patch.
Before Darcy could frame a reply, the older man continued, “We in France have much sympathy for people who throw off their king's yoke. So, you will never hear Alois Hemsath speak against M’sieur de Valera.
“I know that gentleman hates everything English, going as far as to deny safe harbor for Liverpool-bound convoys. How many have died so he can preserve his precious neutrality?
“However, unlike that gentleman, I will not bear any malice toward the British who keep their king. They stood by France even when the Vichyites gave in to the Bosche.
“I have been on the river for a long time. I—and my lady wife, too—can read people. I do not feel that any man worthy of a young lady like chère Héloïse would carry her through a war zone on a pretext as flimsy as a wedding trip.
“So, young man, why are you here in my poor country?”
Darcy sat shamefaced as Alois called out his deception. He raised a hand. “Forgive me, dear friend. Your insight has placed me in a spot of bother. Allow me a moment.”
He looked at Elizabeth, who smiled and lifted a shoulder in a clear signal that said, ‘Treat them like Maxim and the other Resistants.’
“Héloïse and I are on active service with the partisans, Captain,” he began. “I cannot reveal much more, but we leave France for our safety.
“Knowing our names would compromise your safety. We believe military intelligence chases us. We fell off their map after Strasbourg, although that alone might tell those tracking us that we are trying to get the Switzerland and not Berlin.”
Madame’s face softened, and she took Elizabeth’s hand. “Oh, my dear, how worried you must be, brave girl that you are. Even Jeanne d’Arc must have known fear before Orléans.”
Elizabeth changed grips and stroked the back of the older woman’s hand, which, although tanned, reminded Elizabeth of her mother’s. “When my stomach gets twisted into knots, I fall back on my training, Madame. I learned to acknowledge my fear but never allow it to overwhelm and paralyze me.”
Darcy cleared his throat. “We must part company early tomorrow to reach Basel before midday. I cannot stress how important that is. We must cross the border tomorrow. If we don’t, it may be too late.”
The bottle made another round as the air cooled. Words lost meaning as dragonflies buzzed about the foc’sle in the deepening dusk. Each retreated into their thoughts, holding hands with the one they loved the most.
Up for presale, and I got it~~~
I'm going to read it first on KU and then purchase it, as I know that I will like it enough to read it more than once. That will get you a few pennies more! Thanks for your work.