It was another day in Houston as Joan came into the space center for her shift. Although she had gone up into space herself, she preferred being on the ground and acting as CAPCOM, being the only voice that the astronauts heard and representing the many support people monitoring their every breath. She knew all of the astronauts on the flight-they had been chosen with her and had studied, trained and partied together. Two of the crew donned their space suits to manually unlatch a satellite that was supposed to release on its own. As they float back to the shuttle, something goes very wrong...Joan is suddenly responsible for a life or death mission, and one of the shuttle crew is the love of her life.
Flashback, seven years. We learn of Joan's life before NASA, when only men were allowed to fly space missions. She had a doctorate in astronomy but was only allowed to teach the elective astronomy course to freshmen. Through her life, she was steadied by the stars-knowing that they represented a space and time that went before her and would continue afterwards. She never dreamed of having a career in space. One day, her self-centered sister called with unlikely news-she had heard a public service announcement that NASA was recruiting astronomers for their next projects, and they were looking for women. Not only did Joan apply but she was accepted as an astronaut-in-training. Though she moved closer to the space facility, she always came back weekends to babysit her niece, as her sister was not really the mothering type. Outside of the interaction with her fellow trainees, she didn't have a social life-dating did not impress her. But for some reason she was drawn to one of the other women trainees, who was a valued mechanic and could have been a pilot, if women were allowed to fly shuttles. The attraction was mutual. But it was dangerous to buck the norm, and they had their careers to think about...how would this ever work out?
This is a book that you have to read for yourself. It is excellent in every criteria-character development, questions of life, science and philosophy, and beautifully drawn emotions. I am not one to cry over a book but by the end I was teary-eyed. Reid has written a novel that surpasses anything that she has written before and that is saying a lot considering that she is the author of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and Malibu Rising. I hope you will love it as much as I did.
Reviewed by Donna Ballard
June 3, 2025
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