Circling the Sun

Circling the Sun by Paula McLain   368 pages

If you, like me, loved Paula McClain’s novel, The Paris Wife, I’ll bet good money that you are going to enjoy her new novel as much.

The timeframe is still the 1920s, but instead of the United States and France, McLain’s new story takes to the wilds of Africa, when it was still a remote and uncivilized country. Kenya wasn’t Kenya yet; the majority of countries as we know them today didn’t exist either.

McLain also follows suit in that she has picked a real women to portray, Beryl Markham. I didn’t know much about Markham other than she was a renowned aviator. Because of that, I must also say that, as I was reading, I often thought of Anne Morrow Lindbergh as depicted in Melanie Benjamin’s wonderful novel, The Aviator’s Wife.

The story begins in 1934 as Markham is beginning her solo trip across the Atlantic from England to America. No one, not man nor woman, had ever managed this daring feat. After leaving readers with their hearts in their stomachs, the story starts where all stories start—at the beginning, when Charles “Clutt” and Clara Clutterbacck relocate their family from England to a farm in Njoro in the British East Africa Protectorate. From there, we watch young Beryl grow into a trailblazing horse trainer.

There were lots of names of town and native tribe language that I didn’t know how to pronounce, but it didn’t get in the way of the story. The writing and plot are solid, the story intriguing and enchanting, and the characters, both fictional and real, are captivating.

I give Circling the Sun 6 out of 5 stars.