WOMAN OF THE WORLD

At the start of Henderson's lively fiction debut, which is loosely based on the life of photojournalist Margaret Bourke-White, the irrepressible Kate Goodfellow finds herself stranded on a lifeboat in late 1942 after the troopship on which she'd struggled to gain passage is torpedoed before it can reach North Africa. Thwarted once again from joining the front-line action with her male counterparts, Kate uses the time on the lifeboat to reflect on the origins of her remarkable career. After a flashback to 1925 and a short, failed marriage, the story steadily marches from Kate's efforts to break into New York City's photography world, through numerous heady love affairs and finally to professional achievement and recognition. The book veers into more emotional territory when Kate falls for bestselling author Hopper Delaney. Their great passion threatens Kate's struggle to find a balance between work and family. There's a little something for everyone in this immensely readable novel, in which the art of photographing a steel mill proves just as entrancing as, and not so inseparable from, the workings of the heart. Agent, Paul Bresnick. (Nov. 2)

Forecast: Blurbs from Lynn Sherr, of ABC News 20/20, and Sena Jeter Nasland ( Ahab's Wife), plus fans of Vicki Goldberg's biography of Margaret Bourke-White, should give this book a boost. It can't hurt that the author is the wife of Pushcart publisher Bill Henderson.