SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2021 A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A Book of the Year for The Times; The Telegraph; Daily Express; New Statesman; Good Housekeeping; Daily Mail; Mail on Sunday; Time;Esquire; The Economist; Oprah Daily and Woman and Home 'A gripping historical adventure that feels sharp; fresh and modern' STYLIST MAGAZINE So beautiful; so daring; so complete' TAYLOR JENKINS REID 'A masterpiece' NIGELLA LAWSON ____________________________ A soaring; breathtakingly ambitious novel that weaves together the astonishing lives of a 1950s vanished female aviator and the modern-day Hollywood actress who plays her on screen. For fans of TAYLOR JENKINS REID; WILLIAM BOYD and ANN PATCHETT From her days as a wild child in prohibition America to the blitz and glitz of wartime London; from the rugged shores of New Zealand to a lonely iceshelf in Antarctica; Marian Graves is driven by a need for freedom and danger. Determined to live an independent life; she resists the pull of her childhood sweetheart; and burns her way through a suite of glamorous lovers. But it is an obsession with flight that consumes her most. Now; as she is about to fulfil her greatest ambition; to circumnavigate the globe from pole to pole; Marian crash lands in a perilous wilderness of ice. Over half a century later; troubled film star Hadley Baxter is drawn inexorably to play the enigmatic pilot on screen. It is a role that will lead her to an unexpected discovery; throwing fresh and spellbinding light on the story of the unknowable Marian Graves.