Awards

• Commended for Benjamin Franklin Award (New Voice Nonfiction) 2022

Overview

In spring 1942, eighteen-year-old Bill Gemmill was eager to serve his country. After a recruiter stamped his paperwork ""Deferred,"" Bill reluctantly agreed to pursue a college football scholarship. It was the crash of a ferried bomber behind his frat house that changed his life and spurred him on to war. Following fourteen months of training, Bill's vision of fighting from the air finally took shape as his bombardier insignia was pinned by the girl he had to leave behind. Within a month, he and his crew were on their way to Southern Italy. After more than twenty successful missions, on 22 November 1944, disaster struck: Bill and his crew were hit badly. Unable to re-cross the Alps, the decision was made to abandon ship. Parachuting into the Yugoslavian countryside, Bill found himself alone. Would he find his way back to Italy or end up in the hands of German allies? Would he be reunited with his crew? Ultimately, would he survive? Like so many veterans, Bill was reluctant to tell his story but later in life, he opened up to his daughter. Blue Yonder is Bill's story of becoming a man in the midst of defending his country ... as seen through Susan Gemmill's eyes.

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9781939919632

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Susan L. Gemmill is a deep-thinking rebel (born breech in the Year of the Tiger!) and a lover of all things that grow, including people, most especially her son and grandchildren. She currently lives in Colorado with her sixth betta fish named Voldemort. Having declared she would be a novelist at the age of nine, Susan lived a full and well-traveled life of adventure, and misadventure, as the only girl-child in an Air Force family. After nearly five years abroad, she landed back in the city of her birth, Washington, DC, for high school, where she took on the mantle of advertising editor for her high school's yearbook. Whether it was rifling through her mother's scarf drawer for that perfect accessory-the one she needed, along with her chunky pencil, to add a bon vivant flair to her third-grade class photo-or blazing a trail writing at the US Attorney's Office, where she began the first paralegal program for the Justice Department, Susan saw herself as a writer. Life led her onward, away from her role in government and back to the path that brought her closer to her youthful declaration. She wrote and researched several coffee table books for The Storyline Group, including the history of such gripping industries as surface preparation, water infrastructure, and an esteemed private school for boys, while at the same time profiling the most interesting of people for magazines, until Susan at long last segued into novel writing. Blue Yonder is her first book. Her next one is being outlined at this very moment.

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