Hallo, Hallo dear hearts!
I happen to sneak off into the historical past quite a heap which is why when I first stumbled across the marathon to read Contemporaries in January (ie. #ContemporaryJanuary) I was off like a rocket seeking out #newtomeauthors inasmuch as Contemporary authors who have backlist titles (a la #BeatTheBackList reading challenge I am participating in this year) – when I saw this particular title go into a blitz with an extract to share, I knew it was one I wanted to feature on Jorie Loves A Story!!
Here’s why – I *love!* Aviator stories! Generally, I seek out the ones which are interconnected to the military – specifically either the US Air Force or the Marines or even the Navy – depending on the port of entrance. I also loved my years of watching JAG which became an extended bout of joy when I fell into NCIS (and the 2x sequels thereafter!) – this one felt authentically realistic to today’s world whilst it hugged close to the women’s perspective which is something I love to seek out to read. I regularly read Feminist Lit from a Historical point-of-view which is why I am reminding myself I need to invest the same kind of gusto into seeking stories which are writ in the modern eras.
There is a Historical novel of the same title “Fly Girl” by Sherri L. Smith I dearly want to read as well. I want to see if my library can purchase this title and then, I could read two novels of the same title for the Pop Sugar Challenge. If your curious about all the reading challenges I’m tackling this year, you’ll find them over here!
Let’s get into why this novel jumped out at me and why I dearly want to be reading it! I’m going to share an extract with you and then, my thoughts about the story afterwards! If you love reading stories of this nature, I hope this becomes one of your #mustread #nextreads of Winter 2019!
Fly Girl
by R.D. Kardon
It’s 1997. Women stand beside men in combat and fly fighter jets. Pilot Tris Miles is not content with her job as a First Officer for tiny Clear Sky Airlines. She wants to be a Captain—the only way she knows to prove her worth as a pilot and atone for a deadly mistake.
To further her career, Tris accepts a prestigious job with Tetrix, Inc. But her dream of becoming pilot-in-command twists into a nightmare.
As the company’s first woman pilot, she encounters resistance, marginalization and harassment on a daily basis. Fortunately Tris has one thing her co-workers can’t deny—skill.
When Tris finds herself in a crippled airplane thousands of miles from home she must prove she can lead. With her career on the line, can Tris earn the respect she’s been craving? And if this is the end, can she find the strength to forgive herself?
Places to find the book:
ISBN: 9781947392212
Published by Self Published
on 27th December, 2018
Published By: Acorn Publishing (@AcornAuthors)
Formats Available: Paperback and Ebook
Converse on Twitter via: #Contemporary #FlyGIRL
& #AviatorGirls #WomensFiction and #AdventureFiction
Enjoy reading an Extract from ‘Fly Girl’:
Tris lost all visibility as the airplane pierced a thick slab of fog. She slid her focus from the miasma outside the cockpit window to the flight instruments in front of her. They were her eyesight now. She trusted them. They told the truth.
She scanned the gauges and smiled. Tris heard their silent language; woman and machine entwined in the exceptional conversation of flight.
“Clear Sky Two-Five-One, cleared for the approach,” the Columbus, Ohio approach controller announced over a scratchy connection. Tris nodded to Captain Danny Terry, sitting two feet away in the left seat. His jaw clenched as he worked the radios on their last flight of the day.
“Gear down,” Tris commanded.
The landing gear groaned and clicked as they lowered into position. Locked on final approach, the turboprop glided toward the runway, a concrete slab somewhere below them. Its twin engines spun in sync on the airplane’s wings. Tris monitored every bump and twitch of the plane. She answered each with a tap of the controls.
Tris nudged the yoke to bank the airplane left, the plastic coated steering column cool beneath her hands. She thought of all the ways pilots measure movement: degrees of heading, feet of altitude, ticks of the clock. Always counting up, down, until the next critical moment. As Clear Sky 251 slid toward the ground, Tris counted down.
Then she saw the flash. Just for a second, an amber warning light flickered.
“Danny, check the gauges. We had a caution.”
“Five hundred,” the airplane’s synthesized altitude alert announced. Tris checked the altimeter. So close to the ground and they still had zero visibility through the late-summer glare.
“I don’t know,” Danny said as he scanned the gauges. “Wait. It’s the oil pressure on number one. The needle’s going crazy. It could be nothing, just a blip.”
Or the number one engine could be about to fail.
“Ok.” She’d need full power on both engines to climb if they couldn’t land—and she might not have it.
“Nothing in sight.” Danny squirmed forward in his seat to catch the first glimpse of runway lights. His breath grew more labored with every foot of altitude they lost. He wouldn’t see the runway until the very last second, if at all—right when Tris would decide to land the plane or thrust it back up into the soup.
“Roger.” Tris stayed focused and in control. As seconds passed, the plane slid lower, lower, in a stable descent. The only sounds were the whir of spinning dials, the click of needles, the white noise of flight. Tris eyed the altimeter, her hands soft but firm on the power levers.
Danny’s hand twitched behind hers; a backup. He strained to see the runway. Decision time loomed a few feet away.
The caution light blinked again. Tris had to keep her eyes on the navigation gauges. The closer the airplane got to the ground, the more sensitive those indicators became. If she strayed off course, even a little, she’d lose all guidance and have to climb, or else there was no telling where they’d hit the ground.
She felt Danny’s hands move closer to the controls, protecting them in case she faltered.
She didn’t. Tris saw the runway, dead ahead.
“I’ve got it,” Danny said quickly as he keyed the mike. “Columbus Tower, Clear Sky Two-Five-One, runway in sight.”
“Roger, Clear Sky Two-Five-One, Runway Two-Four, cleared to land, wind two-five-zero at three knots.”
“Landing,” Tris said. She looked outside, blinked to focus, and kept the plane moving straight along the runway centerline, edging toward the earth. The altimeter registered field elevation just as the plane’s rear wheels softly touched the ground.
Did you spy the sweet revelation in the author’s biography!? This is an autobiographical contemporary novel writ out of the experiences and memories of the novelist! How wicked brilliant is that dear hearts? You know I hanker after Biographical Historical Fiction – to find a Contemporary from the same point of focus and immersion of the historicals is wicked #awesomesauce! I love finding IRL stories parlaying into fiction – as they bring an additional layer of authentic insight you can trust and feel as if the story is lit alive from a place of origin.
My family & I became interlocked with the sensation that is a Contemporary Thriller known as “Manifest” a new tv drama which as us anchoured into the ongoing search for truth – except I had to take a breathier from it, as the story-lines were growing more & more intensive to view. However, it does have a lot of aviation action and intrigue knitted into the backbone of the story – especially the key part of the premise, how does a plane take off and land over five years later? The fact there are unexpected events happening is what roots you to the chair and the creepier elements just reinforce the Thriller aspects of the series arc.
What I love about this particular novel is that it is more rooted in regular issues facing pilots and those who fly the skies. I used to love to fly until quite a few things changed about how we fly and the delays therein to actually take a flight. There is one thing though I remember from those days – the height of the plane, the grace of the pilots navigating us from one side of the country to the other (unless I was out of the country) and how all of us barely realised we were airbourne until the landing gear came back down as we touched land on the other end of our journey skyward.
You feel like your in the cockpit with Tris – those warnings are not always benign and it is how you deal with those moments of unknowns is what defines you as a pilot. I dearly wanted to know what ‘came next’ and that is the best part of an extract! Getting you motivated to read the story & take the journey with the lead character!
This book blitz is courtesy of:
Most of the blitzes I host for this touring company have giveaways attached to them, which is why I route to the main page via Xpresso Tours as an easy reference for where you can find that information.
Find others hosting via @XpressoTours!
I enjoy showcasing stories as a hostess for:
Similar to blog tours where I feature book reviews, as I choose to highlight an author via a Guest Post, Q&A, Interview, etc., I do not receive compensation for featuring supplemental content on my blog. I provide the questions for interviews and topics for the guest posts; wherein I receive the responses back from publicists and authors directly. I am naturally curious about the ‘behind-the-scenes’ of stories and the writers who pen them; I have a heap of joy bringing this content to my readers. This also extends to Book Spotlights & Book Blitzes which I choose to highlight which might have content inclusive to the post materials which I did not directly add a contribution but had the choice whether or not to feature those materials on my blog.
{SOURCES: Book cover for “Fly Girl”, author photograph of R.D. Kardon, author biography, blitz tour banner and host badge were provided by Xpresso Book Tours and are being used with permission. Post dividers by Fun Stuff for Your Blog via Pure Imagination. Tweets were embedded due to codes provided by Twitter. Blog graphics created by Jorie via Canva: Stories in the Spotlight banner and the Comment Box Banner.}
Copyright © Jorie Loves A Story, 2019.
Comments via Twitter:
#ContemporaryJanuary | #BookSpotlight w/ Extract
✈️#WomensFiction by @rdkardonauthor
?✈️focusing on #AviatorGirls
✈️Realistic & Authentic Voice of Women Aviators
?✈️Based on Real Life
✈️Indie Pub'd via @AcornAuthors??https://t.co/MyZic4sOgW | #bookbloggers pic.twitter.com/sNpykE1CEo
— Jorie, the Joyful Tweeter?? (@joriestory) January 21, 2019
I really like the cover! Lovely post, Jorie! :)
Thanks, Shirley!
I love the cover art on this one as well! So happy you’ve stopped by and enjoyed what I had to share!