About the Book
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| ★★★★★ Goodreads | Amazon |
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’s The Secrets of Flight offers an enjoyably interesting combination of contemporary and historical storylines, as Mary Browning begins an unlikely friendship with fifteen-year-old Elyse Strickler on her eighty-seventh birthday. These two characters, after meeting in a writing group, work together to write Mary’s memoir and start sharing their personal stories, past and present. Alternating both perspective and time period throughout the novel, Leffler skillfully weaves her chapters together to tell a wonderful story for Mary and Elyse, one full of secrets and drama, love and hope. I really liked it (especially learning about Mary’s past as a pilot during World War II) and recommend it.
Thanks to TLC Book Tours, I received a copy of The Secrets of Flight and the opportunity to provide an honest review. I was not required to write a positive review, and all the opinions I have expressed are my own. To read other opinions of the novel, click here.
About the Author
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.
This is a side of WWII I admit that I know very little about and I look forward to learning! Thanks for being a part of the tour.
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