The Pilot's Daughter

Author: Meredith Jaeger
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group, 2021
Pages: 352
Rating: Highly Recommend

Synopsis: In the final months of World War II, San Francisco newspaper secretary Ellie Morgan should be planning her own wedding and subsequent exit from the newsroom into domestic life. Intsead, Ellie who harbors dreams of having her own column, is using all the skills she's learned as a would-be reporter to try to uncover any scrap of evidence that her missing pilot father is still alive. But when she discovers a stack of love letters from a woman who is not her mother in his possessions, her already fragile world goes into a tailspin, and she vows to find out the truth about the father she loves - and the woman who loved him back.

When Ellie arrives on her aunt Iris' doorstep, clutching a stack of letters and uttering a name Iris hasn't heard in decades, Iris is terrified. She's hidden her past as a Ziegfeld Follies showgirl from her family, and her experiences in New York City in the 1920s could reveal much more than the origin of her brother-in-law's alleged affair. Iris' heady deays in the spotlight weren't enough to outshine the darker underbelly of Jazz Age New York, and she's spent the past twenty years believing that her actions in those days led to murder.

Review: I loved this book. I loved the settings. I loved the characters. I loved the story. 

I was a little hesitant to read it because while I had enjoyed Boardwalk Summer immensely, I was disappointed that it was a rewrite of her debut novel, The Dressmaker's Dowry. The characters and time periods had changed, but the formula did not. 

I am happy to say, The Pilot's Wife is story unto itself. Thoroughly enjoyed.