AN ISLE of Wight writer has released his debut novel, which takes a look at one family's journey through the First World War.

The Whistle is James Owen Sowerby's first book and takes its title from a play on words, because in the opening scenes, the reader is introduced to a football team during a tense cup final, and many of those young men go on to sign up for the war.

The story begins in 1914 and is the first in a trilogy following a farming family and a host of other characters to 1920.

In this centenary year, Sowerby, of Yarmouth, publishes the first instalment, but the novel can be read as a one off.

While the central thread of the story revolves around the doomed love of a farm boy for a rich upper class girl, the book covers a range of pertinent issues from that period — the ludicrous class system in the war, political ambitions driving military action, the challenge to faith, the different forms of courage, and of course the challenges facing thousands of women who did not want to sit idly by and do nothing.

The author told the County Press he had spent a lifetime with a passion for military history and the reader could feel this coming off the pages.

Sowerby worked with experts, such as the WI, the NFU, the Red Cross, sporting associations and regimental museums to get a detailed picture of life for the average person during the war and the novel is rich in this kind of detail.

The novel is available on Amazon.

The author is already writing the next book in the series.

He will be holding a launch event at Dimbola Lodge on December 14, from 6pm to 7.30pm.