Elizabeth Wein

Interesting book based on true events. Ingrid is 14 in Nazi Germany hidden by her father as she has a stutter and all children who are not "perfect" are being taken away. Ingrid helps out at the local airfield flying gliders and catches the eye of a famous lady pilot Hannah Reitsch who takes her on tour to help demonstrate " Germany's dominance of the skies" to the people. But the more Ingrid sees, the less convinced she is that she is on the right side and she hatches a daring plan to escape...
Apparently Hannah Reitsch was an actual pilot who was confronted by the atrocities of the Nazi regime and was slow to see what was happening.… (more)

I've really wanted to review a few recent books I've read, but it's been a while! Maybe I'll come back and edit this later if I manage to actually put my thoughts together, but for now: good book! Really good book! While I was reading I was really drawn in to the characters, desperate to find out what happened to them, and a few times surprised and delighted by little twists in the narrative that made me realise that something completely different to what I'd been expecting was, in fact, being constructed.… (more)

This is a 2024 Lone Star novel.

Stella North competes in a race with other European fliers as a peaceful example that countries can get along in 1937. Most of the fliers are male, but 19-year-old Stella holds her own. Each flier is given a handicap based on the type of plane so that everyone is evenly matched. It comes down to how well each pilot navigates to the next destination. The press avidly follows all of the fliers but, particularly, Stella. She jumps into one plane to avoid the press where the pilot representing France plans on acrobatic movements. Not the best meeting. They find themselves drawn to each other's stories. He's a bit of a mystery, for her represents France but has an American accident. They also both have the same passport, which you'll have to read the book to learn about.

The flights become life and death, as one flier dies on the first leg of the competition. Planes are also sabotaged. Why would anyone want to harm someone on this peaceful competition? The pilots learn who to trust and the novel is cat and mouse as they struggle to win the competition but to also stay alive.

I really enjoyed listening to this novel--I love the time period and the lessons about early airplanes.… (more)