Book Review - Vampires of The Sky by Michael L. Preble

Book Review

Vampires of the Sky

Michael L. Preble

Short Story

Appx. 7600 words

available at www.smashwords.com

It is the summer of 1940. William is a fighter pilot with the Royal Air Force. Sofia is a girl meets in a pub shortly before he is to go back off to war. The time they have together is necessarily brief, but perhaps their love is the flame that will see them through the darkness to come.

Several things drew me to this story.  First and foremost, I like historical stories and especially those from WWII.

I'm happy to say that this story did not disappoint.

William Suffolk is a fighter pilot with the RAF.  He meets young Sophia Crawford at a pub and not-unexpectedly they fall for each other. With Germany advancing on England, the young couple abandon themselves to the moment, because in war a moment may be all that they have.

Although I liked the sweet love story between the characters, I really enjoyed the air battle sequences.  The author put me right in the sky, inside William's spitfire.  I felt the stick in my hand and held my breath as the incoming German fighters opened fire.  The author was not only able to put me in the scene, he also got me inside the character's head so I experienced the emotions of the battle - elation, fear, panic.

My stomach churned and I was white-knuckling the stick with William as he tried to maintain control of his stricken airplane.  I couldn't turn the page fast enough as his plane plowed into the English's countryside.

I won't give away the ending.  But I will say that for his first published story, Michael L. Preble has done a nice job.  There were a few places that could have been cleaned up with some editing and I feel he could've started the story with the couple meeting (instead of Sophia's ocean voyage to England). But all in all this was money and time well spent.

~LAFreed