Great Circle

Maggie Shipstead

A soaring, breathtakingly ambitious novel that weaves together the astonishing lives of a 1950s vanished female aviator and the modern-day Hollywood actress who plays her on screen.
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From her days as a wild child in prohibition America to the blitz and glitz of wartime London, from the rugged shores of New Zealand to a lonely iceshelf in Antarctica, Marian Graves is driven by a need for freedom and danger.

Determined to live an independent life, she resists the pull of her childhood sweetheart, and burns her way through a suite of glamorous lovers. But it is an obsession with flight that consumes her most.

Now, as she is about to fulfil her greatest ambition, to circumnavigate the globe from pole to pole, Marian crash lands in a perilous wilderness of ice.

Over half a century later, troubled film star Hadley Baxter is drawn inexorably to play the enigmatic pilot on screen. It is a role that will lead her to an unexpected discovery, throwing fresh and spellbinding light on the story of the unknowable Marian Graves.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION
SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE
SHORTLISTED FOR THE HWA GOLD CROWN
THE NEW YORK TIMES AND TIMES BESTSELLER
TIME MAGAZINE BOOK OF THE YEAR