A war story, a love story, a true story

A snippet here, a comment there, long ago I became entranced with the story of my friend Nadya Murdoch’s parents, Guy D’Artois and Sonia Butt.

- SHELLEY PETERSON

In her book "The War We Won Apart," Nahlah Ayed parachutes us into Nazi-held France just before D-Day to pave the way for the Allied forces.

Who were these Canadian Second World War heroes, and what made them capable of leaping from planes behind enemy lines through pitch-black skies to join the desperate people of the French Resistance to fight the Nazis? This is a story that had to be told.

In her book, “The War We Won Apart,” Nahlah Ayed parachutes us into Nazi-held France just before D-Day to pave the way for the Allied forces. She brings to life the hair-raising danger that became the hourly reality of those who served in Winston Churchill’s secret army, the Special Operations Executive. This book invites us into the shadows where a missed message spells certain death for operatives, and an intercepted drop gives weapons to the enemy instead of the SOE.