"Brilliantly constructed and wildly entertaining; this novel is as ambitious as its heroines - and it doesn't fail."
Kirkus Reviews

"A grand journey that takes you from Prohibition to World War II, from Montana to Los Angeles, from London to New Zealand, to the Hollywood of our time. The reader will enjoy every minute."
People

"Overwhelming book, full of twists and turns and colors... Shipstead is a writer who can vividly conjure up anything she wants and involves the reader in the worlds she creates... Marian Graves is such a real character that I Googled her twice you to check if he really lived."
Financial Times

In 1914, the luxury ocean liner Josephina Eterna catches fire. Addison Graves, the captain of the ship, escapes the sinking ship with his newborn twins, but his wife does not survive the disaster. The captain is sentenced to a long prison term, and the children, Marian and Jamie, are raised by their lecherous uncle who lives in Missoula, Montana.
On one occasion, the little girl meets a pair of pilots traveling through the city in a dilapidated biplane, and this seals her fate: she falls irrevocably in love with flying. At the age of fourteen, he is patronized by a rich spirit smuggler who pays for his flying lessons and even buys him an airplane. Of course, this comes at a price, which will haunt Marian for the rest of her life, but this is the only way to fulfill her dream of flying over the North and South Poles to make the big circle and circumnavigate the Earth.
In Los Angeles in 2014, actress Hadley Baxter portrays the main character, Marian Graves, in the final scene of a film, and is uncontrollably anxious. She was two years old when her parents died in a plane crash, and she was raised by her only living relative, the skirt-hunting uncle, producer Mitch. However, growing up in the whirlwind of Hollywood is not easy. Being able to portray the character of Marian came at the best possible time for her. Hadley digs into the history of the famous aviator and finds surprising parallels...
A century separates them, yet their destinies are intertwined: two brave and determined women who have to assert themselves in a world dominated by men.