Come Fly with Me by Camille Di Maio is the story about a friendship between two women who just happen to become Pan American stewardesses. On the surface Judy and Beverly seem very different, but as their relationship develops the reader will find many similarities. The locations the characters visit add color and the depth of the bond Judy and Beverly share make this a wonderful read. I voluntarily reviewed a copy of this book from NetGalley. Most highly recommend.

A gentle, romantic story about two young women in the early 1960s who become Pan Am stewardesses. For important reasons of their own, they need to escape their current lives, although those lives continue to haunt them and jeopardize their new airline careers. It is so interesting to see women's roles in the early 1960s, and fascinating to get an insider's look at what it was like to be a flight attendant during the golden age of travel.

I was pleasently surprised by how much I found myself wrapped up in this story. A story about two opposites going through the Pan Am program for different reasons. It reads back and forth between present day and the past.

I am a huge fan of the history behind air travel and Pan Am was a prime example of growth. Everything down to how things looked fascinated me and this book does a great job at capturing that magic from the 1960's. Flying was different then, a lot more glamourous than your average flight these days. This really is a walk down memory lane (that I have no memory of aside from picture).

The characters are likeable, the story is fairly predictable but again, managed to keep me hooked in. But the research was so thorough and and everything fell together so well.

Thank you NetGalley for the e-arc!! <3

I was genuinely surprised by how much I enjoyed this book. It was so much fun to read about the Pan Am stewardesses and the lives they lived. If, like me, you are old enough to remember when flying was much more glamorous, you will enjoy this greatly. It's not so much the story, but rather the lifestyle of the early 1960s. The story is fairly predictable and ordinarily that might cause me to give it just three stars, but I appreciated the research and the thought behind the book. I had Frank's voice in my ears the minute I read the title.

Thank you to NetGalley for an advance copy of this book. My generation is going to love it!

Well, I started reading this book last night, and finished this morning. I was absolutely enthralled by the story of Beverly and Judy.

As someone that was enamored with the thought of being a flight attendant (and yes I’m old enough to have called them stewardesses, a girl that still has her first TWA wings), the story was one that immediately peaked my interest.

Come Fly with Me was a lovely read that left me both with a smile on my face and heartbroken. A tale of love lost and of redemption.

Thanks to NetGalley for the e-arc!

In the glamorous early days of flying, two very different women go through the rigorous interview and training process to attain the coveted position of stewardesses on Pan Am’s airline: one, a poor woman from rural Pennsylvania escaping an abusive marriage; the other, a wealthy New York socialite whose Wall Street dad cuts off her funding when he takes the job instead of marrying his college. Judy’s first-time flying is when he gets on a plane to go to Miami for training; Beverly has jetted multiple times, including to European locations. Judy is married, while Beverly is almost-engaged, and a virgin. Both pass with flying colors.

In spite of these differences, Judy and Beverly become friends, confidantes and roommates, each pursuing a love interest while learning their routes. It’s said most stewardesses leave the job after eighteen months, snagging a husband from the first-class manifest. Judy falls for her instructor, a former steward named Joe, during training; ever the gentleman, he flies six hours round trip just to have dinner with her. Beverly meets an Olympic hopeful doing his swimming training in Hawaii, and falls hard. Neither romance has any on-the-page consummation, but someone does end up pregnant…

Filled with wonderful historical details of the subjugation of women (regulation uniforms down to the lipstick brand and shade they were permitted to wear, regular weigh-ins, and strict rules around drinking, smoking, and overnight guests), di Mayo provides a well-researched and realistic story. Significant events of the time period help to set the context: concern around the escalation in Vietnam, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the arrival of the Beatles in America. The technical details are equally fascinating, such as the challenging choreography of a jet’s approach to mountainous Hong Kong, seen through Judy’s eye from the cockpit when the kind pilot learns it’s her first time flying into the old Kai Tak airport.

Framed around Sinatra’s performance of “Come Fly With Me,” Judy and Beverly make a list of all the places from the song–and more–that they want to visit, and make a pact to visit Paris annually. The narrative opens with one of the two women (it’s not revealed until late in the novel) sitting on a beach, as promised, with the ashes of a lover. The story moves back and forth from the present day great-grandmother with cremated remains, and the alternating stories of Beverly and Judy. Neither voice is particularly distinctive from the other, in spite of their differences in class and geography, but the details of their lifestyles would help tell them apart if the chapters were not helpfully labeled. There are few in-air incidents, save a butt-groping; I had a sense from Ann Hood’s Fly Girl, a solid first-person account of working for TWA, that flight attendees are highly trained to act in an emergency, and di Mayo’s trainees are told there is at least one incident per flight, but we mostly see training and relationship drama.

I received a free advance reader’s copy of #ComeFlyWithMe via #NetGalley courtesy of #LakeUnionPublishing. The review will post to HLBB on 2/18/2025