This is the story of Audrey Coltrane a young Texan woman who loves to fly and dreams of one day owning her own airfield. WWII is happening overseas, but the people of Texas are largely unaffected. Audrey gets an opportunity to go to Hawaii as a flight instructor and she jumps at the chance. Life in Hawaii is good, she's a highly respected flight instructor, she has wonderful friends and there's handsome Lieutenant Hart who has caught her eye. Everything seems perfect until Pearl Harbour is attacked and America joins the war.
Audrey returns to Texas until she receives an invitation to join WASP, the Women's Airforce Service Pilots. Female pilots from all across America are invited to receive military training which will allow them to do jobs left vacant by men who have now gone to war. Men like Lieutenant Hart.
WASP was a real program, although the characters in this book are fictitious. These women all trained in Sweetwater, Texas, without being given full military status. After their graduation from the program they were given jobs like ferrying planes across the country where they often faced the sexist attitudes of the men working at the airfields where the women were landing planes.
Noelle Salazar created a great cast of characters, strong women blazing the trail for all of us who came after them. These women were breaking down barriers long before most of Western society knew they could be broken. There was a bit too much talk about make-up and lipstick for my liking. I would have liked to see women who weren't worried about those sorts of things, but I'm not sure what women in that time period would have thought about that. Maybe they did still want their lipstick to be perfect before they took off in their planes.
Part historical fiction and part romance, I thought the two blended together well. I was spellbound while reading of the attack on Pearl Harbour and the aftermath. I was brought to tears on a couple of occasions as scenes of war played out and lives were lost.
All in all, I found this to be a very entertaining and informative read. I didn't know about the WASP program before and now I'd love to learn more. This one will be available in early August and I highly recommend it.
