Author: Bonnie Leon
Publisher: Revell
My synopsis/thoughts: Even though it was 1935 and women were expected to become wives and mothers, Kate Evans wanted more. She had grown up in an airplane, learning to fly alongside her father. At 19, when her best friend is killed in a plane crash where Kate was the pilot, she feels she is to blame. So she decides she needs to push herself to show what a good pilot she really is. After calling off her engagement, she moves to Alaska to try to find work as a bush pilot.
In Anchorage, her services aren't immediately needed, so she starts working for a kind couple and bunks in a room at the back of the store. Eventually she gets work part time on a mail route. It gives her some experience with Alaska weather and helps her to learn the lay of the land. Along with the job, she meets Mike, another pilot who trains her on the mail route - and slowly takes a shine to her - and Paul, a man who moved to Alaska to get away from his past and the memories that haunt him.
I enjoy books set in this time period - though they only briefly touched on the Depression, I like the simplicity of people's lives and relationships that they come to rely on. When the main character is a strong (and stubborn) female - all the better. I found it interesting that the author got some of her information from an actual female Alaskan bush pilot from the 60's. Living in the midwest, it is hard to grasp how isolated you could feel and how the weather can really be such a large component in how you plan your life. This to me was a very laid back but warm book dealing with issues of guilt, forgiving oneself, and using the gifts God has given you in a way that is both fulfilling to you and honoring to Him.
~I received a copy of this book for this Revell blog tour in exchange for my review.~
Available July 2010 at your favorite bookseller from Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group.
Touching the Clouds
Publisher/Publication Date: Revell, July 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-8007-3359-9
364 pages
