Announcing my new novel, Chandelle. It’s a love story about war. Or a war story about love.

To order directly from my publisher, Maine Authors Publishers, press here. Or, use this Amazon link .

This is my fourth published novel. I’ve written a few others gathering dust under my desk or in a corner of my computer.

You can order any of my novels through Amazon.

This is Chandelle

He rises from deep poverty as an orphan to become one of America’s top combat pilots, while hiding and suppressing a deep secret from his past.

She is wealthy, lives a life many can only dream of. She, too, harbors a secret.

They meet by chance in a small town in Japan where no one knows them. He is on a break from combat. She reveals her secret: an expensive divorce looms. He keeps his secret to himself.

Their fiery week-long romance ends with a promise to reunite five months later, at the end of his combat tour. The reunion takes place five years later, under challenging circumstances.

This is a story about a romance that endures despite strong obstacles, some self-imposed. Their lives thrive around the lovechild they create in that small town, a son who displays all of their strong traits, plus one that neither parent seems to possess.

This is also a story about war in the jet age, battles in the skies over Korea and Europe, battles that never seem to end. Adversaries that change regularly, war to war, with consequences.

Finally, it’s a story about redemption, how his deep secret, inadvertently revealed, brings him down. How a nation learns to forgive and honor a true hero.

About Alfred Kildow

Alfred Kildow grew up orphaned and poor. On welfare. Lived in his old car, worked in a gas station, joined the Air Force during the Korean War. Became a jet fighter pilot, later a journalist and public relations specialist in the aerospace industry, notably with the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. And he began writing fiction.

Polio pioneer Jonas Salk asked Kildow to join him as his assistant at the La Jolla, Calif., institute that bears his name. There he met Nobel Laureate David Baltimore, who asked Kildow to help him found the Whitehead Institute for Biological Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Kildow’s wife, Dr. Judith Tegger Kildow, is a retired professor of ocean policy at MIT.

He served with Dr. Baltimore for a dozen years, at the Whitehead and also at The Rockefeller University when Baltimore became its president. In 1989 Kildow was recruited by the University of Southern California to lead several public relations efforts. He stayed for ten years.

Kildow is retired, living and continues writing in Maine, where his wife is active with several organizations. His 91st birthday took place on January 16, 2024.

Publications

Three of Kildow’s earlier novels were self-published with Amazon:

Fallout: Remains of an Atomic War — The novel depicts a raid with atomic bombs launched from jet fighters. Kildow trained for just such a mission — and envisioned the aftermath. Fortunately the actual mission never occurred. You’d have noticed.

Exiles: A Curveball Called Destiny — In the depths of the Great Depression, veterans of World War I marched on Washington DC to claim a promised bonus. They were chased off with gunfire. Kildow examines this historic event, but he asks, what of the children of these veterans? One of the novel’s principal characters concludes that war is a disease you can catch. It’s communicable.

Prelude to a Sting — A toddler is sexually assaulted by the adult father of a playmate. It is up to her to gain revenge. And she does. Her story mirrors the rise of female empowerment.

His lengthy short story, The Flyboy, was published in the 2021 Goose River Anthology. TV Tots appears in the 2023 Goose River Anthology. Both, and others, can be reached under the Short Stories link in the first page heading.