New wartime novel Bird’s Eye View takes flight

Elinor Florence's first novel, Bird's Eye View to be published October 2014.

A new wartime novel by journalist Elinor Florence of Invermere explores the little-known topic of aerial photographic interpretation, and tells the story through Canadian eyes.

Elinor is the former owner and publisher of the Columbia Valley Pioneer in Invermere, and former Kootenay Business Magazine’s Top Ten Business People for 2010.

Since selling the newspaper, she turned to fiction and her first novel is about to be published in October 2014.

Bird’s Eye View is about a young woman from Saskatchewan whose home town becomes an air training base. Fired with patriotism, she joins the air force herself – one of 50,000 Canadian women who enlisted to support the fighting men.

Bird’s Eye View is about a young woman from Saskatchewan whose home town becomes an air training base.

Rose Jolliffe travels overseas and becomes an interpreter of aerial photographs, spying on the enemy from the sky, searching out camouflaged munitions factories and bomb targets on the continent. She keeps in touch with the home front through frequent letters from her mother.

And throughout the war, she has a bird’s eye view of the Canadian experience -- at Dieppe, in the skies over Germany, on the beaches of Normandy -- and finally, when our country shared in the Allied victory.

The author Elinor Florence grew up on a former wartime airfield near North Battleford, Saskatchewan, worked for newspapers in all four western provinces, and was a regular contributor to Reader’s Digest.

Elinor also writes a weekly blog called Wartime Wednesdays, telling true stories of Canadians during wartime.

Bird’s Eye View is her first novel, published by Dundurn Press of Toronto. It will be available on October 25th in bookstores, and as an ebook.

Elinor will be signing copies of Bird’s Eye View at Lotus Books from 2 to 4 p.m. on November 22.

For more information, visit Elinor’s website.

Elinor Florence will also be appearing at the Pynelogs Arts Centre, in Invermere, on Friday, November 14 at 7 p.m.