In 1980 a Rice University physics professor answers NASA's call for women scientists and joins the space shuttle program. Taylor Jenkins Reid's novel follows Joan Goodwin through training, friendship and love.

Readical Key Points

• A Good Morning America Book Club pick and a #1 New York Times bestseller, according to the publisher
• Chosen among the year's best books by Time, NPR and Library Journal, among others, according to the publisher
• Starred reviews from Booklist and Kirkus Reviews; also reviewed in Library Journal and Publishers Weekly
• A love story between women, set in the early years of NASA's shuttle program
• Hardcover, 352 pages, Ballantine Books, 2025

Joan has loved the stars since childhood and is settled in teaching physics and astronomy when an advertisement changes her plans. Chosen from thousands of applicants, she trains at the Johnson Space Center in Houston with a class that includes a Top Gun pilot, a fellow scientist, a hard-driving mission specialist and Vanessa Ford, an aeronautical engineer at home with any engine or aircraft.

As the class trains toward its first missions and becomes a set of friends, Joan falls in love in a way she never expected. Then, in December 1984, a mission changes everything. It suits readers of Reid's earlier novels and of historical fiction. Joan signed up to leave the planet. Love finds her first, while she is still training on it.

About the Author

Taylor Jenkins Reid is the author of novels including Carrie Soto Is Back, Malibu Rising, Daisy Jones & The Six and The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, and her publisher describes her as a #1 New York Times bestselling author.

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