Wings by Danielle Steel: Cassie O’Malley’s Journey From a Small-Town Airfield to a World Flight
Pat O’Malley, the father of a large family with only one son, starts an ambitious project in Good Hope, a small town in Illinois, after the Great War ends in 1918: he opens a small airfield for carrying mail. He dreams that his son Chris will fall in love with flying, but to his dismay it is his youngest daughter, Cassie, who develops a passion for aviation.
Author: Danielle Steel (born 1947)
Title: Wings (1994)
Format: English paperback (Corgi), 544 pages
Scope: Historical romance set in American aviation
Amazon: www.amazon.es/dp/0552137480 (ASIN 0552137480)
Learning to Fly in Secret
Cassie learns to fly in secret and gradually makes a name for herself at local air shows, winning some first prizes. Her father cannot see what future a girl like her could have in that world. After finishing high school she decides to go on to university to become a teacher, while her sisters already have four or five children each. After a summer of lessons with Nick, her father’s friend, she polishes her style, and at university she keeps finding Saturdays for flying.
Williams Aircraft
Her life takes an unexpected turn when a young tycoon who has inherited his father’s aircraft company, Williams Aircraft, notices her at a local air show. He sees that her knowledge of flying goes far beyond the ordinary and decides she could help his company set new records with its planes. She is hired to fly and test the newest aircraft on the market, and to pose for the press, which she comes to hate, along with many other social duties. It seems like a dream come true; the only sadness is being far from her loved ones.
A Flight Around the World
The Second World War breaks out in Europe and Cassie keeps working under her contract, while Nick, her former instructor, leaves for England as a volunteer. Home for Christmas, she discusses the renewal of her contract with her father: the company proposes a round-the-world flight to commemorate Amelia Earhart’s disappearance, which would be a triumph if she completes it. The dangers are not only storms, strong winds and fog; with war raging, no precaution is too much. For all her daring and training, a world flight is an enormous challenge.
The Golden Age of Flight
The novel spans the decades between the two world wars, when aviation was changing fast and pilots were celebrities. Air shows drew huge crowds, record-breaking flights made headlines around the world, and aircraft companies competed fiercely for publicity. Cassie’s story is fiction, but readers will recognise echoes of Amelia Earhart, the American pilot who became famous for her record flights and disappeared over the Pacific in 1937 during an attempt to fly around the world.
Danielle Steel
Born in New York in 1947, Danielle Steel is one of the most widely read novelists in the world, known for family sagas and romances that often place their heroines against dramatic historical backgrounds. Wings is a good example of her approach: a strong, determined woman, a family with conflicting loyalties, and a love story that develops over many years against the background of major historical events.
A Father and a Daughter
At the heart of the book is the relationship between Cassie and Pat O’Malley. He loves her, but he cannot accept that she, not her brother, has inherited his passion for flying. Their struggle, and the slow change in his attitude, give the novel its emotional core, and many readers will see in it the old conflict between parents’ expectations and children’s dreams.
Why Read It
A sweeping story about a woman fighting for her place in a man’s world, with the golden age of aviation as its backdrop.
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