The timeline of the book ranges from Prohibition era Montana to the wilds of Alaska to wartime London to modern day Los Angeles. It’s the story of two women whose stories intertwine and intersect across centuries.
The main character, Marian Graves and her twin brother Jamie were rescued as infants from a sinking ship where there mother perished. It was their father, the ships captain, who saves them and as a result of not going down with his ship, is sent to prison and the children are raised by their dissolute uncle in Montana.
Marian drops out of school at the age of 24 to learn to fly airplanes. She makes a deal with a dangerous and wealthy bootlegger who subsidizes her lessons and Marian knows that someday the price for that arrangement will be very high. But, she does it anyway.
The story about Marian and airplanes is a huge part of the book…but certainly not all of it. The author does an incredible job of telling bits of the story in one era and then jumping to the next century seamlessly. At the beginning I thought two things…One, the author won’t be able to pull this off…and two, this book might break my heart. I was wrong about the first…the author tells an epic tale told over centuries. It wasn’t confusing…it was necessary. I’m not quite done with the book…my heart isn’t broken but damn…there’s enough tragedy to go around for the characters I’ve grown really fond of. I believe I am about to be very surprised at the ending.
I did not expect this novel to take place (in part) in Missoula, Montana, my home town. That was a bonus for me…and, the author was spot on in terms of her geographic references. I live a couple blocks from where the main characters lived. What would be the odds of that? Super fun.
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