NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR, BOOKPAGE, AND SHELF AWARENESS • “Paula McLain is considered the new star of historical fiction, and for good reason. Fans of The Paris Wife will be captivated by Circling the Sun, which . . . is both beautifully written and utterly engrossing.”—Ann Patchett, Country Living This powerful novel transports readers to the breathtaking world of Out of Africa—1920s Kenya—and reveals the extraordinary adventures of Beryl Markham, a woman before her time. Brought to Kenya from England by pioneering parents dreaming of a new life on an African farm, Beryl is raised unconventionally, developing a fierce will and a love of all things wild. But after everything she knows and trusts dissolves, headstrong young Beryl is flung into a string of disastrous relationships, then becomes caught up in a passionate love triangle with the irresistible safari hunter Denys Finch Hatton and the writer Baroness Karen Blixen. Brave and audacious and contradictory, Beryl will risk everything to have Denys’s love, but it’s ultimately her own heart she must conquer to embrace her true calling and her destiny: to fly. Praise for Circling the Sun “In McLain’s confident hands, Beryl Markham crackles to life, and we readers truly understand what made a woman so far ahead of her time believe she had the power to soar.”—Jodi Picoult, author of Leaving Time “Enchanting . . . a worthy heir to [Isak] Dinesen . . . Like Africa as it’s so gorgeously depicted here, this novel will never let you go.”—The Boston Globe “Famed aviator Beryl Markham is a novelist’s dream. . . . [A] wonderful portrait of a complex woman who lived—defiantly—on her own terms.”—People (Book of the Week) “Circling the Sun soars.”—Newsday “Captivating . . . [an] irresistible novel.”—The Seattle Times “Like its high-flying subject, Circling the Sun is audacious and glamorous and hard not to be drawn in by. Beryl Markham may have married more than once, but she was nobody’s wife.”—Entertainment Weekly “[An] eloquent evocation of Beryl’s daring life.”—O: The Oprah Magazine
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"It comes across like a biography /memoir and the story is mostly in chronological order which makes it easy to follow. The novel is the life story of Beryl Markham. I knew nothing about her and found it fascinating and emotional at times. We follow her living on her father's farm, through a rushed-into marriage and see her independence grow. Highly enjoyable. The recording is split into tracks each of around 5 minutes duration. This seemed unnecessary and chapter splits would have been better."
— Suzy... (5 out of 5 stars)
“No one does compulsively readable historical fiction about women better than McLain. She proves it again in [Circling the Sun], one of her best.”
— AARP“Beryl Markham was a pioneering aviator…yet few young girls know her name. With her latest novel, based on true events, McLain…aims to change that. Beryl is one badass heroine. McLain crafts a story readers won’t soon forget.”
— Good Housekeeping“[A] fictionalized history…as luminous as its headstrong heroine. An exhilarating ride.”
— Family Circle“Famed aviator Beryl Markham is a novelist’s dream…a complex woman who lived—defiantly—on her own terms.”
— People“Reminds us that independent women have always been among us, moving at their own speed.”
— O, The Oprah Magazine“An engrossing story of love and adventure in colonial Africa, complete with gorgeous landscape, dissolute British ex-pats, and lots of derring-do with horses, motorcars, and airplanes…The best kind of contemporary historical novel.”
— Amazon.com, editorial review“[A] fascinating portrayal…Highly, highly recommended.”
— LibraryReads.org“[A] luminous new historical novel…giving readers a book—and a world—to get lost in.”
— BookPage“Narrator Katherine McEwan offers a soft, youthful feel to Beryl’s early life…McEwan delivers credible accents—African and British—and her melodious voice is a fine match for Paula McLain’s lush descriptions of Africa.”
— AudioFilePaula McLain is the author of several New York Times bestselling novels and a memoir and two collections of poetry. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, Good Housekeeping, O: The Oprah Magazine, Town & Country, the London Guardian, and the Huffington Post.
Katharine McEwan is an English-born actress and an AudioFile Earphones Award–winning narrator. Her theater credits include Private Lives at Long Beach Playhouse, The Verdi Girls at Laguna Playhouse, Night Mother at Stage Lee Strasberg, and Hamlet at the Next Stage. She has also appeared in numerous independent and Hollywood films.