Girl at the edge of sky
(Book)

Lily Litvyak is no one's idea of a fighter pilot: a tiny, dimpled teenager with golden curls who lied about her age in order to fly. But in the crucible of the air war against the German invaders, she becomes that rare thing--a flying ace, glorified as the White Rose of Stalingrad. The real Lily disappeared in combat in August 1943, and the facts of her life are slim, but they have inspired Lilian Nattel's indelible portrait of a courageous young woman driven by family secrets to become an unlikely war hero. Nattel takes another big leap, asking the compelling question: what if Lily survived that crash and became a prisoner of the Germans? Lily lives in a world of horrifying risk, where the stakes are high in the air, but also on the ground. In the Soviet system, everyone is an informer, even your best friend. Lily lives in constant fear that she will be found out, as a Jew and as the daughter of a dissident, and either grounded or executed. When she ends up a German prisoner, the need for deception becomes even more desperate.

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