Novel about a "novel" female airline pilot!

If you're like me, you love to kick back and read a good book. I'm a big fan of mystery/murder/mayhem novels and have found the perfect use for them: If I have a LOT to do (which is per the usual) I can justify reading a book if I do just one thing after every chapter, ie unload the dishwasher, answer one email, etc. Normally the "one" thing turns into 2 or 3, so it's a way to motivate me to complete all those small chores when I'm overwhelmed.

I received the following email and am happy to say I can recommend the following book told to me by the author. The book is available for download or hard copy. I loved it, especially all of the airline/airplane references and especially the nod to Kara Hultgreen, the Navy pilot who perished off of a carrier a few years back. It does have some mature references and rough language, just so you know.

Dear Ms. Meeks:

I came across your “Very Important Pilots” and “Girls With Wings” websites through a link on Capt. Meryl Getline’s “From The Cockpit” homepage. Although I’m neither a girl nor an active pilot, my interests in flying as well as gender equity issues go back many years. Your websites and related blogs are valuable resources for leveling the playing field in aviation, and I wish you great success with them.

My reason for writing is to introduce you to a novel I’ve written, one of whose themes is female empowerment both in and out of an airplane cockpit.

Medusa’s Daughter is the story of Holly MacLaren, a captain for Honolulu-based Mahalo Air Lines. Before joining Mahalo, she was one of the Navy’s first female F/A-18 pilots—and she remembers well the sexism that was rampant in the strike-fighter community of the 1990s. Since leaving the Navy, she has married and divorced a country music star, become a happy and successful Boeing 737 driver, and handled all the challenges of being a good single mom. So when she suddenly starts having panic attacks, she’s at a loss to know why, or how to make them stop.

Holly’s daughter, Skye, sees things other six-year-olds don’t—though she can’t decipher much of it. The gift gives her a hazy awareness of her mother’s problem. Soon it will make her a reluctant witness to worse things that lie over the horizon.

A panic-induced car crash puts Holly’s flying on hold. While she waits for her physical injuries to heal, she turns to a psychiatrist, Dr. Patrick Henry Katayama III, to find the cause of the attacks. Regressive hypnotherapy reveals a number of past lives, each ending in tragedy. In her last incarnation she was Ensign Robert Dean Strawn, the victim of an unsolved murder aboard the USS Arizona. The crime took place the night of December 6, 1941 .

Several weeks after this revelation, Holly’s therapist vanishes, and signs point to another homicide. Then she finds herself stalked by a wealthy U.S. Senate candidate—a man with apparent ties to both Ensign Strawn and his killer! As Holly and Skye struggle first to understand this threat and then to face it down, their efforts take them on a spiritual journey—and a search for the truth behind one man’s heroism at Pearl Harbor .

This book is what I would call suspense with a sense of dark humor—and also women’s fiction. My hope is that you might take a look at it and, if you feel your readers could benefit from its message, put a link to it on your website(s).

Maybe you could start with just the first two chapters (11 pages), which are available here: http://www.lulu.com/browse/preview.php?fCID=690706

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Thank you for your time and consideration. I hope to hear from you soon.

Sincerely,

Mike Boyd