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The Dark of the Moon

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The Dark of the Moon

By: Fiona Valpy
Narrated by: Anne Flosnik, Angus Yellowlees
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About this listen

From the bestselling author of The Dressmaker’s Gift comes an unforgettable story of wartime courage, enduring love, and a decades-long search for the truth...

In 1943, Philly Delaney would do anything to help win the war. As one of the brave "Attagirls" ferrying military aircraft across Britain, she never expected to fall in love with Ben, a dashing Spitfire pilot. But their whirlwind romance is interrupted when her talent for solving cryptic crosswords leads her to Bletchley Park's legendary codebreakers.

Soon, Philly's skills make her the perfect candidate for a perilous mission into Nazi-occupied France. But when Ben's plane vanishes during a similar covert flight, her world shatters. Despite searching for decades, she's never discovered what happened to the only man she ever loved.

Now in her nineties and staying on the beautiful Île de Ré, Philly has all but given up hope. But in young Finn, her hosts' mathematically brilliant but struggling son, she finds an unexpected ally. As she shares her extraordinary story, they discover that some lost things are waiting to be found–and that love's power to heal never dims with time.

A wonderfully immersive, atmospheric and moving story of wartime resilience, hope, loss—and the enduring power of love.

©2025 by Fiona Valpy. (P)2025 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.
20th Century Family Life Genre Fiction Historical Fiction Aviation War Resilience

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Critic reviews

‘The novel is well researched and full of fascinating information about codebreaking and the French resistance, and Finn’s voice makes it come alive.’Historical Novels Review

The Dark of the Moon is an involving and very touching read. It offers readers a fascinating exploration of a too-little-known element of Bletchley Park history and a moving personal story. The present day narrative interweaves cleverly with the past and I was gripped throughout.’—Anna Stuart, author of The Midwife of Auschwitz

The Dark of the Moon is a dazzling and tremendously moving story about love, courage, and the importance of finding answers. Told from the points of view of ATA pilot and Bletchley Park codebreaker Philly Delaney and Finn, her friends’ young son who helps Philly as she tries to locate her husband’s final resting place, this gorgeous novel is both a tale of wartime daring and bravery as well as a tender exploration of grief. Fiona’s beautiful prose brings the characters and their struggles into vivid perspective and the settings in Britain and on sunny Île de Ré off the coast of France are wonderfully immersive. Atmospheric and thoroughly captivating, I couldn’t put it down!’—Linda Wilgus, author of The Sea Child

All stars
Most relevant
I have listened with wonder to this book. It is a moving story of two remarkable lives, Philly and Phin. The contrast between them could hardly be wider, the one an autistic young man and the other, an elderly one-legged woman. But they draw out a story and in so doing draw attention to truths about human life in its complexity, richness and depth. 'Sometimes the sadness is almost unbearable, the cruelty of what we inflict in each other, and yet still the wonder of perseverance, courage, and love coming through and ultimately triumphing. lt is not on the surface of it a religious book, but in the deepest and truest sense it conveys many Christian insights about our life in this world and for me, many echoes of Bible truth, especially its quest for the complete person, the dark side of the moon, which does have light, but hidden so that we don't see when it is shining. Awesomely brilliant!

A most remarkable story.

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Lots of audio errors. the actors were fine, but the audio itself did some weird stuff a bit too often. And I did check, it was not the player or my phone that caused them.
The story itself was okay, but I couldn't find myself caring about the present time characters at all except for Philly. And mostly hoped to stay in the past timeline.
They're mostly just blank papers. Finn was the best of them obviously, but he still didn't really give me anything.
I did like a more accurate show of autism as an autistic person myself. Even if I don't face the same amount of struggles, it was nice to see.

Audio issues

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