One More Hour of Daylight
by C.M. Gray
From the Bestselling Author of Shadowland
On the first day of World War II, a young man makes a promise—one that will shape every choice he makes for the next four years.
Essex. September 1939.
A wounded German pilot drops from a clear autumn sky into a quiet English field. Seventeen-year-old Derrick finds him—broken and feverish. Not an enemy. Just a young man asking for one small mercy before everything ends.
One more hour of daylight. That is all I ask. A chance to breathe free air before whatever comes next.
Derrick gives him until morning.
When the stretcher comes, the pilot’s last words strike Derrick like a blow he will never stop feeling.
Scotland. France. Germany. 1941–1943.
In the mountains of Scotland, they teach him how to kill, how to lie, and how to endure things that break most men. Then they give him a new name, put him on a plane, and drop him into the dark.
As an SOE operative deep inside occupied Europe, Derrick Sedgley lives on false papers, borrowed names, and nerves worn to nothing by years in the shadows. He moves agents to safety, builds escape routes, and stays one breath ahead of the Gestapo.
Then a mission collapses—and everything changes.
Forced to run, Derrick finds himself moving through the most dangerous corners of occupied Europe alongside someone whose connection to his past he cannot yet see. As safe houses fall, loyalties fracture, and the frozen passes of the Pyrenees rise ahead like the edge of the world, Derrick begins to understand something.
The choice he made in an Essex field on the first day of the war has been leading him here all along.
Some debts cannot be paid.
Some can only be carried.
And some—if you are brave enough, and fortunate enough—can finally be laid to rest.
From the quiet fields of Essex to the mountains of Scotland, from the dangerous streets of Lyon to the shadows of wartime Hamburg and the high passes of the Pyrenees, One More Hour of Daylight is an unforgettable story of courage, guilt and redemption—of ordinary people forced to make impossible choices in extraordinary times.
Some promises can survive a war.
Some people can too.
For readers who believe that even in war, what matters most is who we choose to be.
"’I know what these hands have done I will always know that.’"
But the war is very real from that moment onwards. Initially, life for the Sedgleys seems to continue as normal, with Derrick and his sister Janey attending school. But when Derrick gets himself into trouble for continuing German classes (well, for the girls, really), he realises that not everyone understands that language and long-dead writers are not to blame for their country's current regime. Derrick continues with Latin and French – which he already speaks fluently due to his mother hailing from Lyon. This is important for the plot to evolve.
When he witnesses a German Messerschmitt plane being shot down, he follows the trail of the pilot who had parachuted out. He finds him, with his arm broken, at a nearby barn. Intrigued, he begins a conversation with the enemy, Ernst, and ends up promising him ’one more hour of daylight’. In fact, he gives him a whole night before he reports him to the police, especially as the man is in need of medical attention.
The event stirs up something in Derrick's mind, and soon after, he decides to sign up for the army, lying about his age. With his keen intelligence, physical fitness, and knowledge of languages to native level, he soon becomes a young recruit of interest, as he'd hoped.
After intense training in the Scottish Highlands (which makes for thrilling reading), Derrick is on his way to the continent, under false names. How will the young man fare inside enemy lines?
One More Hour of Daylight is a compulsive novel that you'll be reading late into the night. Its thrilling tension is interspersed with moments of insight, reminiscence, and even a touch of gentle, slow-burning romance.
The Sedgleys add a sense of normality, of home comfort and warmth, to the uncertainties of war, with their quirks and habits. They are a friendly family whose unwavering support for Derrick is crucial even when they don't really know what he's doing.
In the German pilot, Ernst, the author has created a second, occasional narrator, whose journey makes for chilling reading. Not necessarily evil by nature, but still very much following the political doctrine, he crops up again unexpectedly. The reader knows what's going to happen, and I thought this makes for a very clever plot twist. Sometimes, we're a step ahead; sometimes, behind.
Derrick is a really intriguing protagonist. A bit of a loner, but not without friends, highly intelligent, quick-witted, multi-lingual, and adventurous. One may wonder early on if he is too young for the vital roles he'd soon play, but he is growing fast in character as the story progresses. Yet, Derrick is no action hero, but a young man who thinks before he (re)acts. That marks him as someone dependable, especially in the dangerous situation he encounters. Perfect for special operations.
Gray's enthralling narrative invokes the terrors of the war well throughout the novel, be that in the south-east of England, Germany, or France, and even during the nail-biting race across the Pyrenees. He has recreated bustling cities like London and Lyon under threat from a brutal force that doesn't even stop at persecuting their own. The struggles of the French Résistance become real as you turn the pages, and the scenes where Derrick (aka Karl) is questioned by the authorities in Hamburg are truly bone-chilling. The plot is imbued with a constant, underlying sense of danger.
The author's research is incredibly detailed (including Derrick's rough training in Scotland in preparation for joining special ops; and planes, weapons used, locations...), and yet this novel feels different from others in the genre. Gray does not judge, and nor does his protagonist, Derrick. The human interaction is at the forefront here, and through Derrick and also Ernst, his antagonist, we witness the different sides, and in Ernst's case, the damage that propaganda can do to a person who, once upon a time, was really ’nice’. I found both their motivations fascinating to observe.
One More Hour of Daylight is a WWII thriller with a difference. Yes, there is plenty of action, suspense, and danger. But there are also moments of introspection, almost philosophical. And whilst the author doesn't hide the brutality of the war, he shows it in a way that raises readers’ awareness of the actual people involved. People of all walks of life, on all sides.
In Derrick, Gray has created a protagonist worthy of being a hero, without ever seeing himself as such. A refreshing take on the WWII action genre of the 1960s.
One More Hour of Daylight is a story that will stay with you long after you've finished reading it.
Highly recommended.
Review by Cathie Dunn
The Coffee Pot Book Club
The Coffee Pot Book Club
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C.M. Gray
C.M. Gray's first book, The Flight of the Griffin, was longlisted in the 2015 Times Chicken House Writing Competition. Shadowland, the first book in the Pendragon Saga, has so far received over 900 five-star reviews on Amazon. These things still genuinely astonish him, and he is deeply grateful for every one of them.
Most of his previous work has been fantasy: either pure fantasy or historical fantasy, the kind of writing where druids turn up uninvited and one of your main characters develops an unsettling affinity with wolves before you have quite decided what sort of book you are writing. Shadowland began with every intention of staying grounded in historical reality, the story of Uther Pendragon. It did not. It has turned out to be a popular book, so he does not complain.
His years travelling through Asia, India, Africa and the Middle East have a habit of finding their way onto the page. He has seen and done some fairly strange things along the way and met some extraordinary people, and writing fantasy has always felt, to him, only a short step from writing fact.
New for 2026
One More Hour of Daylight, marks C.M. Gray's return to writing. It was published in June 2026, marking a departure: pure historical fiction, no druids, no wolves. It follows Derrick Sedgley, a seventeen-year-old from Essex who makes a single moral choice in a field one September morning in 1939 and spends the next four years living with the consequences. From the Essex countryside to occupied France, from the mountains of Burgundy to the Pyrenees, it is a story about promises, betrayal, courage and the cost of doing the right thing too late.
And for those who have been waiting patiently for the Pendragon Saga to continue: the third book, Shadow's Heir, the story of Arthur Pendragon, follows in September 2026. More on that very soon.
C.M. Gray was born in England and grew up in the Essex countryside near the Suffolk border, which is where Derrick Sedgley grows up, too. The flat fields, the big skies and the particular quality of Essex light found their way into the book, whether he intended them to or not.
C.M. Gray is now very happily settled just outside Barcelona with his wonderful wife and partner in life, Adriana.
Connect with C.M.:
Amazon Author Page • Goodreads
