Sparrow Squadron
by
D.L. Jung
Genre: YA Historical Fiction/Action-Adventure
Release Date: February 2018
Summary:
"There was a time when flying didn't mean looking over my shoulder for death coming at me."
World War II. June 1941. Hitler's war machine turns to the Soviet Union.
Escaping her hometown ahead of the Nazis, 16-year-old Aelya Makarova seizes a chance to live her dream. Obsessed with flying, she joins a women's fighter squadron to defend her homeland against the invaders. She'll go faster and higher than she's ever gone before.
But the harsh reality of Air Force life shatters her expectations and forces her to grow up fast. The squadron is split by petty rivalries, male pilots treat them like a joke, and the ideal country she thought she was fighting for doesn't really exist.
Finally given a chance to prove herself in battle, Aelya is pushed to breaking point. With all her talent, the help of her comrades, and a lot of luck, she might just make it through. But will there be anything left of her humanity?
With fast-paced action and a heart-rending mix of humour and tragedy, Sparrow Squadron is an adventure novel for young adults that brings an overlooked episode of history to life.
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Sparrow Squadron Blog Tour: Prepared Interview
Questions
Introduce yourself.
My name is D.L. Jung.
That doesn't match the name on my birth certificate, but then again, neither
does the name on my desk at work. I work in IT, am married and have two
intermittently tolerable kids. That sucks up most of my time. Pretty much every
free second outside of that is devoted to goofing off, I mean, writing.
I live in Canada, but
I'm lucky enough to spend part of my time in New Zealand.
What inspired you to write this story?
A long time ago, I
happened upon the documentary "Wasps and Witches" on TV.
It tells the parallel
story of the American Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP’s) of World War II
and the female combat pilots fighting for the Soviet Union at the same time. I
was particularly fascinated by the Soviet women, and read as much on them as I
could. Until then, I had no idea that women had fought in combat during WWII,
let alone flew fighters and bombers.
There's now been quite
a bit of fiction and non-fiction written about the night bomber pilots, the
"Night Witches," but very little about the fighter pilots. I thought
that was a shame, so I decided to step into that gap. And so, many years later,
Sparrow Squadron came into being.
Did you write Sparrow Squadron what is
currently happening in society in mind?
I think all fiction
reflects the world around the writer. While the idea for the novel came much
earlier, the bulk of it was written a year and a half ago. Probably the biggest
external influence was the lead up to the 2016 US election. Because a female US
president was a likely possibility, there was this strange mix of uplifting inspiration
and rampant misogyny. Neither of these things is new. As each generation faces
its own struggles to make progress, it's good to be exposed to what previous
generations faced and achieved. All of that was definitely playing in my mind
when I wrote the novel.
How much of Sparrow Squadron is fiction?
Aelya’s story itself
is fiction and all of the people, with one notable exception, are all inventions
of mine. However, I wrote this with the intent that all the events in the novel
could reasonably have happened. Obviously, the major historical events all
happened and many incidents are drawn from real-life accounts. The backgrounds
of many of the characters are also based on real-life people.
What was your favourite discovery in doing your
research?
As a result of
Lend-Lease, in which the United States sent supplies to the Soviet Union to
support their war effort, Soviet military personnel got inundated with a
Spam-like canned meat. They took to calling it "Second Front." This
was in part a dig at the repeated promises and delays the West made to open up
a second front against Germany while the Soviets continued battling every day.
Describe your writing routine.
Everything in my
schedule is based around the fact that I have a full-time job and kids. I
usually schedule as much as I can around breaks at work and at night, after the
kids’ bedtimes. I try to go several weeks without a lot of sleep, then crash
for a week, then get back to it. That may sound crazy, but I find I’m actually
way more productive when I have limited time to write. I try to remember that
any moment of writing could be my last!
What can we expect in the sequel?
Aelya's going to be
pushed into more of a leadership role, whether she feels ready or not. We're
also going to see Aelya's first visit to the home front since she joined up.
The relationships between the surviving pilots are going to get a lot more
intense as they're thrown into the Battle of Kursk, which will push them
further beyond the limits of anything they experienced at Stalingrad.
What are your future writing plans?
First and foremost, I
need to finish the trilogy that starts with Sparrow Squadron. Then I
have some epic fantasy that's just burning to get out of my head and onto the
page. A significant part of it is inspired by a North Korean-style
authoritarian personality cult.
What would Aelya like the most about our
present day world and what would freak her out?
The extent of air
travel available today would thrill Aelya, though she'd be a bit disappointed
that we haven't gone to other planets yet. She'd be first in line for that job!
As a child of Soviet society, I think she'd be overwhelmed by all of our
entertainment choices and distractions. She'd probably want to escape into a cockpit
at the earliest opportunity.
Who was your favourite character to write?
Obviously Aelya, being
the protagonist, feels very much like my own child. But I loved letting loose
on the "bad girl" Tonya. She doesn't really have a heart of gold, but
there's a certain reasonable logic behind everything that she does and it was
fun getting into that mindset.
What were some books that influenced your
writing for this novel?
For Sparrow
Squadron, The Hunger Games series
by Suzanne Collins was probably top of mind. I admired the tense,
action-oriented writing. The Agency
Series by Y.S. Lee, with its underdog, teenage heroine in a historical
setting, also had a polished mix of humour and danger that I tried to emulate.
Another huge influence was the Battle of Britain novel Piece of Cake by
Derek Robinson. Its realistic depiction of the confusion of combat and the
camraderie of the pilots makes it really stand out among war fiction.
What do you like to do in your downtime?
I like to reserve
Fridays evenings, after the kids go to bed, as do-nothing times. It's a
holdover from my college days. I'm so disciplined (by necessity) most of the
week, I think I'd go crazy without that one off day. I usually spend it in a
combination of watching TV or playing video games. Not very exciting, but I put
all my spare energy into my writing.
What might readers be surprised to know about
you?
Mainly because I
forgot to mention this in any of my bios, they might be surprised that I once
tried to run a sports analytics business. It didn't take, but I got to watch a
playoff hockey game from the owner's box out of it!
About the Author
DL Jung has been an enthusiastic student of history since grade school, when he spent lazy afternoons flipping through an old Encyclopedia Britannica set. He enjoys blogging about history and writing historical fiction. He also writes fantasy and horror fiction as Darius Jung.
Jung is married, with two children, and lives in Toronto, Canada. They are lucky enough to spend part of the time in New Zealand. Outside of writing, he has tried stints as an industrial engineer, a film and TV script supervisor, an IT consultant, a professional game show contestant, and a grossly under-qualified business wear model. Sparrow Squadron is his debut novel.
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