Atmosphere

Reid’s transportive latest (after Carrie Soto Is Back) revolves around a forbidden love between two female astronauts in the 1980s. In 1984, a botched satellite deployment by the Navigator space shuttle kills several members of the crew. As the disaster unfolds, capsule communicator Joan Goodwin desperately tries to advise surviving engineer Vanessa Ford from Houston’s Johnson Space Center. The narrative then rewinds seven years, to when Joan, a “Goody Two-shoes” astronomer at Rice University, feels a “pull deep down in the layers of her skin” upon learning that NASA is recruiting women for its astronaut corps. While training as a mission specialist, she meets tall, curly-haired Vanessa, an aeronautical engineer who longs to pilot the space shuttle. The two women are drawn to each other and begin a romance, which they keep secret due to NASA’s prohibition against “sexual deviation.” Their reticence makes the ill-fated 1984 flight even more poignant as Reid keeps the reader in suspense about what happens to Vanessa. Along the way, Reid makes palpable the astronauts’ passion for their work and captures in vibrnt detail the era’s high-stakes and fast-paced shuttle program. The author’s fans will find much to enjoy. Agent: Emily Sweet, Park Fine & Brower. (June)