The Secrets of Flight by Maggie Leffler - TLC Book Tour

Paperback: 368 pages

Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks (May 3, 2016)

This captivating, breakout novel—told in alternating viewpoints—brings readers from the skies of World War II to the present day, where a woman is prepared to tell her secrets at last.

Estranged from her family since just after World War II, Mary Browning has spent her entire adult life hiding from her past. Now eighty-seven years old and a widow, she is still haunted by secrets and fading memories of the family she left behind. Her one outlet is the writing group she’s presided over for a decade, though she’s never written a word herself. When a new member walks in—a fifteen-year-old girl who reminds her so much of her beloved sister Sarah—Mary is certain fate delivered Elyse Strickler to her for a reason.

Mary hires the serious-eyed teenager to type her story about a daring female pilot who, during World War II, left home for the sky and gambled everything for her dreams—including her own identity.

As they begin to unravel the web of Mary’s past, Mary and Elyse form an unlikely friendship. Together they discover it’s never too late for second chances and that sometimes forgiveness is all it takes for life to take flight in the most unexpected ways.

 

Maggie Leffler is an American novelist and a family medicine physician. A native of Columbia, Maryland, she graduated from the University of Delaware and volunteered with AmeriCorps before attending St. George’s University School of Medicine. She practices medicine in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where she lives with her husband and sons. The Secrets of Flight is her third novel.


Find out more about Maggie at her website, and connect with her on Facebook.

As a huge lover of Historical novels, I knew this had to be one of the books I added to my read list.

The story is told in alternating views, jumping from 87 year old Mary to 15 year old Elyse.

For many years, Mary's story has gone untold, everything she went through back in World War II, left just in the confines of her memory, but as the young Elyse walks into the writing club Mary presides over, things change.
We come to know Mary, or Miri Lichtenstein, who was a Women’s Airforce Service Pilot during World War II.


As the young girl writes the memoir, she must also juggle her current life which seems to be falling apart, and it's that relationship forged between the two that becomes one of the main focuses of the story.

I really enjoyed this book, not just for the historical factor but the way it was written.  We got to see the younger girl's character develop while also learning about what life was like for the women left behind during the war....what they did, how they managed and how some of them wanted to contribute by becoming WASPS (Women's Air Force Service Pilots).

Thank you to TLC Book Tours for providing me with a review copy.