Heather_J

"Come back to me," she whispered to the sky.

Vivian is practical, with no patience for egos or nonsense — a woman carving out her place in the male-dominated world of 1960s television news. A few months after Viv begins sharing an apartment with Polly in Arlington, VA, the two women meet Joe and Frank, fighter jet pilots with astronaut ambitions. Joe is romantic and impassioned, focused and driven — an adrenaline junkie who loves motorcycles and jets and burns with the dream of reaching space.

"I've never felt more at peace, more in awe of the world around me, of life, than when I'm in the air. There's a poetry about it, a simplicity and beauty to how very small you feel when confronted with the vastness of the universe and your place inside it. It humbles you, I suppose. Or makes you feel like anything is possible. Maybe that's the humbling part. I can never decide."

Polly and Frank fall in love quickly and marry. Viv and Joe are more deliberate — the sparks are immediate, but complications keep them at arm's length for a time. Eventually they find their way to each other. Joe achieves his dream of becoming an astronaut, while Viv quietly sets aside her own dream of becoming a news anchor to support his. Then comes that fateful day when mission control loses contact with Joe's spacecraft, and Viv is left suspended in time, reliving their life together.

"She'd known when he went up that the chance of him coming back to her alive was as good as a coin toss. Now those odds seemed decidedly worse and stacked against her.

How could they lose a spacecraft?"

The portrayal of astronaut families and the politics of space exploration feels richly familiar — very much in the spirit of The Right Stuff, which the author apparently read in preparation.

"Astronaut wives had long been subjected to public fascination and consumption, and considering the army of reporters camped out on her front lawn waiting for a glimpse of her, they didn't care that this was one of the absolute worst moments of her life."

Around 70 in, the story takes a turn that carries a distinct Interstellar quality — though told from a wife's perspective rather than a daughter's. It's a clever blend of romance, sci-fi, and emotional depth that keeps the story feeling fresh: Interstellar meets The Time Traveler's Wife.

But at its heart, this is a love story — many love stories, really. There is love between people, love for dreams, love for life itself. Yet threading through all of it is Viv's story, and it is hers above all else.

My final thoughts: This is ultimately about Viv and Joe — a love that transcends time, a meditation on loss and the quiet rebirth of love. The story moves slowly and tenderly, and while the sci-fi elements raise questions that remain unresolved, I still found myself deeply absorbed in their journey. For fans of emotionally resonant sci-fi like The Time Traveler's Wife, I'd recommend this one if you're looking for a gentle read that stirs your heart, nudges you to contemplate the vastness of the universe, and leaves you comfortable sitting with more questions than you started with.