Thank You to Little, Brown and Company for providing me with an advance copy of Daniel Riley's novel, Fly Me, in exchange for an honest review.

PLOT- The year is 1972, Suzy Whitman has just graduated from a prestigious college and is planning her next move. Grace, her older sister, is loving her life working as a stewardess and  living in the beach community of Sela Del Mar. Suzy decides to join her sister in California and applies to be a stewardess at Grand Pacific Airlines. At first, her new career and city seem exciting and glamorous, but then she meets Billy. Billy is charming, slick, and a drug dealer. He tricks Suzy into trafficking drugs on her flights to New York. Quickly, Suzy finds herself caught up in a world that she never asked to be a part of and one that she is finding it increasingly difficult to leave. Can she get out before she gets caught?

LIKE- The strongest aspect of Fly Me is the setting. Riley has clearly done his research to recreate the era when commercial air travel was still glamorous. As we now live in a time where flying is a necessarily evil, rather than a pleasure, there is a longing for the way thing used to be. This evident with television shows like Pan Am and attractions like The Pan Am Experience in Los Angeles, where you can experience a vintage mock flight, that includes menus of the era. Riley has written a glimpse into that world. Additionally, I'm from Los Angeles, so I loved the local references and beach city setting. Fly Me is rich with historical and geographical details.

The ending is outrageous and not necessarily believable, but I was happy that Riley tied together some seeds that he had been planting throughout the story. I had been worried that certain elements wouldn't pay-off, but they did. 

The title is great, it's a play on a vintage aviation advertisement for National Airlines. It's a sexist ad, but something straight from the era. Suzy is a strong female character, who bucks tradition, and when she is asked to participate in the campaign, she's appropriately appalled. 

DISLIKE- I felt a lack of urgency, even though Suzy is experiencing issues (might be caught trafficking, father with cancer, et) that should create a natural tension in the story. Even thought situationally, the stakes are sky-high, I never felt that Suzy was overly worried. I just watched an episode of Better Call Saul, where there was a scene with a lower-level drug dealer who has stolen his bosses pills and has replaced the medication with aspirin. The scene in which he has to make the switch with the pills was so intense that my stomach knotted up. It was hard to watch. The tension in Fly Me, should have been like this scene.

I didn't understand the relationship between Suzy and Billy. They hang-out a lot, even though he is slimy and continues to put her in a dangerous situation. He isn't quite charming or attractive enough for that to be a solid reason for Suzy to keep coming back. For goodness sakes, he's an adult who lives in his parent's basement!

RECOMMEND- Riley is a solid writer and this story is well-researched, but I didn't love Fly Me. I'd be inclined to check-out Riley's future novels, but unless you're very interested in the era or aviation, I can't recommend this book.

Fly Me by Daniel Riley (debut)
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Release Date: June 6, 2017
Length: 400 pages

Single Sentence Summary: 1972 Vassar grad, Suzy Whitman, reluctantly signs on as a stewardess, and quickly finds the job has some hidden benefits.

Primary Characters: Suzy Whitman – Suzy has always been a high achiever, expecting a lot of herself. Following in her older sister’s footsteps was not in her plans. Grace – Suzy’s older, more free-spirited sister. Grace loves flying and living in Southern California. Mike – Grace’s “secret” husband, since stewardesses had to be single.

Publisher’s Best: In Sela del Mar, California-a hedonistic beach town in the shadow of LAX-Suzy skateboards, suntans, and flies daily and nightly across the country. Motivated by a temporary escape from her past and a new taste for danger and belonging, Suzy falls into a drug-trafficking scheme that clashes perilously with the skyjacking epidemic of the day.

Review: Fly Me by Daniel Riley gets its title from the 1971 ad campaign run by National Airlines in which a gorgeous young stewardess looked in the camera saying, “I’m Cheryl. Fly me.” In Riley’s debut, our heroine, Suzy, turns down an opportunity to star in a similar campaign. Fly Me is more than a book about a pair of sisters flying in the early 70’s, the heyday of aviation. It’s also a book about the quintessential (but fictional) California beach town of Sela del Mar. I grew up in the Bay Area and spent my college years in Southern California, in an era not all that distant from the 70’s, so the setting of Fly Me was a big draw. In a good way, Riley squeezed every possible Southern California/1970’s cliché into his story: skateboarding, surfing, slathering on baby oil, sex, coke, rock & roll, Jim Jones, airline hijackings, drug-running and more. Being from California I loved and appreciated Suzy’s observations about the citizens of Sela del Mar.

“So many of them have only Sela. Apparently, they grew up only learning California history – and bad California history at that. They have no sense of what’s going on anywhere else. What the rest of the country and world are about – some of them haven’t even ever left California before.”

Yup!

The story itself started out a little slow. Riley worked to build a viable background for why Suzy found herself in Sela del Mar working for an airline. She was a very smart girl, one year too young to have been admitted to Yale. Suzy did get to do a semester there as part of an exchange with Vassar, but seemed to have a lot of anger about her missed opportunity. While that might have been interesting in another story, I’m not sure it was important to this one.

Fly Me was at its best in the middle of the book. It “took off” when Suzy started smuggling drugs for the local supplier. What at first was a one-time thing rapidly bloomed into more when Suzy came to need cash, and quickly! As one might expect in a book filled with clichés, getting out of the drug business was not going to be an easy task. I found everything in the middle of the book to be fun, compelling, and at times even heartwarming.

For me, the big problem with Fly Me came in the end. The resolution of Riley’s story was so unlikely, so unreasonable, so (dare I say) ridiculous that it left me disappointed. I acknowledge that Riley may have been going for some humor with a sort of tongue-in-cheek nod to yet another cliché, but if so, it didn’t work for me. Instead it felt like the author had backed himself into a corner and couldn’t find a way out. Still, I liked more about the book than I didn’t and think it will make a perfect beach read this summer! Grade: B

Note: I received a copy of this book from the publisher (via NetGalley) in exchange for my honest review.

For some reason, I thought this book was going to be more humorous than it actually was. While I had a tough time getting into it, the book did get better and I finished it.

This was a more serious story telling the trials and tribulations of being a stewardess. The story was set in the early 1970's when there were several planes crashing and skyjacking was the new popular way to get to Cuba.

The story is told through the eyes of Suzy and details a lot of emotions while deciding whether or not to keep "stewing" and also about her second job, running drugs to help pay for her father's needed surgery.

Give this one a little bit of time to get going and I think you will find it to be a pretty good read.

Thanks to Little, Brown and Company and Net Galley for providing me with a free e-galley in exchange for an honest, unbiased review.

I had a weird experience while reading this book. When I started, I wasn't sure I was going to like it. The writing didn't appeal me at first, but the setting had me intrigued. I was about to try a new read, but something prevented me from doing so. I wanted to know more.

The more I read, the more engaging the story became. I wasn't entirely happy with the way the story was told, but at the same time, I was really enjoying the 70s and California, the beaches, the flights, the characters... The main character's storyline was quite attractive, as she starts to smuggle drugs while working as a stewardess in order to pay for her father's operation. And I knew that couldn't end well.

To be honest, I think this book was too long and I wish it had been shorter, especially the first section. The ending came as a total surprise, but I'm not sure I liked it. I think it was too crazy and out of the blue for my taste, but some people might be satisfied with it. Overall, this was a weird but strangely compelling read.

This book was a little slow at first but it picked up. If you like reading books set in the 70's, drugs,etc you will enjoy this book. The lead character is a bit much at times and the book dragged for me in certain areas, but I still wanted to keep reading to see what happens. Ok read. Thanks to NetGalley,the author and the publisher for the advanced reading copy of this book in return for my honest review.