Great Circle

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Brought to you by Penguin.

**SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2021**

**LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2022**

I WAS BORN TO BE A WANDERER

From the night she is rescued as a baby out of the flames of a sinking ship; to the day she joins a pair of daredevil pilots looping and diving over the rugged forests of her childhood, to the thrill of flying Spitfires during the war, the life of Marian Graves has always been marked by a lust for freedom and danger.

In 1950, she embarks on her life's dream - to fly a Great Circle around the globe, pole to pole. But after a crash landing she finds herself stranded on the Antarctic ice without enough fuel. With one fearsome piece of water separating her from completion of the Circle, she writes one last entry in her logbook.

She is ready for her final journey.

Half a century later, Hadley Baxter, a brilliant, troubled Hollywood starlet is irresistibly drawn to play Marian Graves, a role that will lead her to probe the deepest mysteries of the vanished pilot's life.

GREAT CIRCLE is an enthralling journey over oceans and continents and a drama of exhilarating power. Combining unforgettable characters and thrilling suspense, it is a sweeping story of loss and obsession, sacrifice and survival, of the unknowable mysteries of freedom, love and life itself.

Praise for Maggie Shipstead, New York Times bestseller and winner of the Dylan Thomas Prize and LA Times First Fiction Prize:

'Outrageously gifted' RICHARD RUSSO
'Ferociously clever' GUARDIAN
''Graceful and dazzling' MARIA SEMPLE
'Joyously good' DAILY MAIL
'impressive' JEFFREY EUGENIDES

© Maggie Shipstead 2021 (P) Penguin Audio 2021

Critics Review

Luminous, masterful ... glides seamlessly through the 20th century immersing the reader. Tremendously well-written
TELEGRAPH, 'Best Fiction of 2021'
A gripping historical adventure that feels sharp, fresh and modern
STYLIST MAGAZINE
Shipstead turns phrases and observes people beautifully. Full of adventure, passion and tragedy... a glorious tribute to women who push the boundaries of their one, brief life, breaking the bonds of their place in history and their female bodies, to soar higher and faster than others; and the price they pay to live so fast
THE TIMES, 'Best Fiction of 2021'
Impressive and gripping
SUNDAY TIMES
What's so impressive is how deeply we care about each of these people, and how the shape and texture of each of their stories collide to build a story all its own. GREAT CIRCLE grasps for and ultimately reaches something extraordinary
NEW YORK TIMES
The Marian portions rove from Montana to Manhattan to Scotland and Antarctica, and read like a carnival of early-20th-century American history, packed with bootleggers, treacherous boxcar rides, and tragic shipwrecks. The Hadley chapters offer a delectable dissection of life as a celebrity, serving up an intelligent skewering of the Hollywood machine and allowing the book to take flight
VOGUE
GREAT CIRCLE is a novel of our insatiable need to stare down the terrible, magnificent vastness of it all: love, war, desire, fear ... A sweeping, swashbuckling book, full of oversaturated colour and grand destiny. The joy of this dynamic, soaring novel is not a welcome extra but its very engine
TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT
Encompasses flight, travel adventure, identity, sexuality, family, the celebrity age - and in such beautiful writing. A masterpiece.
NIGELLA LAWSON
Rocked by the cool cadences of Shipstead's prose, readers will embark on a journey through time and space. Across 600 pages, they'll link arms with its characters as they stroll along the decks of early-1900s ocean liners, then board private jets to eavesdrop on the poolside parties of 21st-century Hollywood. They'll spot eagles arcing over the wild frontiers of Prohibition-era America then feel the lonely, existential chill of the white expanses of Antarctica - in between city breaks in Europe and Australia
INDEPENDENT
This wonderful novel weaves together the story of two women: a female aviator who goes missing in the1950s and the Hollywood star playing her in a film in the present day. A commitment that rewards with memorable characters and vivid storytelling
GOOD HOUSEKEEPING, 'Best Fiction of 2021'

User Reviews

Book 5.0
Narration 5.0
5.0
5.0
mdt 15/04/2022

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