GOOD MORNING AMERICA BOOK CLUB PICK • From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The
Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and Daisy Jones & The Six comes an epic new novel set against the
backdrop of the 1980s space shuttle program about the extraordinary lengths we go to live and
love beyond our limits. “Thrilling . . . heartbreaking . . . uplifting . . . the fast-paced
emotionally charged story of one ambitious young woman finding both her voice and her
passion.”—Kristin Hannah author of The Women “NASA? Space missions? The ’80s? This is a
collection of all the things I love.”—Andy Weir author of Project Hail Mary and The Martian
Joan Goodwin has been obsessed with the stars for as long as she can remember. Thoughtful and
reserved Joan is content with her life as a professor of physics and astronomy at Rice
University and as aunt to her precocious niece Frances. That is until she comes across an
advertisement seeking the first women scientists to join NASA’s space shuttle program. Suddenly
Joan burns to be one of the few people to go to space. Selected from a pool of thousands of
applicants in the summer of 1980 Joan begins training at Houston’s Johnson Space Center
alongside an exceptional group of fellow candidates: Top Gun pilot Hank Redmond and scientist
John Griffin who are kind and easygoing even when the stakes are highest mission specialist
Lydia Danes who has worked too hard to play nice warmhearted Donna Fitzgerald who is
navigating her own secrets and Vanessa Ford the magnetic and mysterious aeronautical engineer
who can fix any engine and fly any plane. As the new astronauts become unlikely friends and
prepare for their first flights Joan finds a passion and a love she never imagined. In this
new light Joan begins to question everything she thinks she knows about her place in the
observable universe. Then in December of 1984 on mission STS-LR9 it all changes in an
instant. Fast-paced thrilling and emotional Atmosphere is Taylor Jenkins Reid at her best:
transporting readers to iconic times and places creating complex protagonists and telling a
passionate and soaring story about the transformative power of love—this time among the stars.
