Review by Booklist Review
The Wright brothers' famous flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, in 1903 is well-known, but Orville and Wilbur's sister Katharine's key contribution to their success remains largely unrecognized. In Wood's (The President's Wife, 2023) fourth novel, the Wright siblings set out to achieve flight, inspired by childhood memories of watching geese take off from a lake. Katharine manages the family bicycle business and works as a teacher, allowing her brothers to focus on engineering and innovation. Sacrificing her own dreams of home and family to support them, she contributed vital design elements and helped build models for wind-tunnel trials. Once the Wrights achieve flight, patent wars ensue, and the family faces trials and triumphs in securing the future of their technology. When Katharine finally feels free to choose her own path, her family's trust in her choices is put to the test. Wood perfectly captures turn-of-the-century innovation, invention, and progress. With glimpses of true early twentieth-century events, her book will delight fans of historical fiction featuring a strong female protagonist.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Wood's charming latest (after The President's Wife) highlights the contributions Katharine Wright (1874--1929) made to her brothers' innovations in aviation. Katharine, brazen and spunky, supports her older siblings Orville and Wilbur's fascination with manned flying machines, suggesting they invent planes in the back of their bicycle shop in Dayton, Ohio. After their mother dies, she keeps house for the family, and though her brothers never finish high school, she graduates from Oberlin and becomes a teacher. She puts her prospects for marriage on hold to help her brothers design the aircraft by studying bird anatomy and recommending fabric for the wings, and she helps write a letter to the Smithsonian asking for information about flying machines. She even identifies Kitty Hawk as the perfect spot to test their plane. Over the years, she makes more sacrifices, as when she gives up her teaching job to nurse Orville after a devastating accident. Told from the points of view of Orville, Wilbur, and Katharine, the lengthy story breezes by with heart and verve. Well-researched depictions of historical events and immersive period details round out this stirring tribute to an unsung trailblazer. It's a gripping tale of perseverance. Agent: Lucy Cleland, Kneerim & Williams. (Sept.)
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