Review: Flying at Night

Flying at Night by Rebecca L. Brown
My rating: 4.5 of 5 stars

4.5 Stars

Drawing in part from her own personal life, author Rebecca L. Brown has given us a novel dealing with a six month period of struggle in the life of Piper Whitman Hart. After decades of dealing with an emotionally abusive father, Piper has conflicted feelings when her father has an almost fatal heart attack and struggles to overcome the traumatic brain injury of oxygen deprivation. Lance, the Silver Eagle, was a pilot and a cold and controlling man. He abused Piper, her brother Curtiss, and their mother, Judy, for decades. With her brother out of the picture and her mother seizing the opportunity to escape her stifling marriage, Piper is left struggling to care for her recovering father. And in the midst of this, she is shocked to have her son Fred's school and professional evaluators telling her that her nine-year-old son is on the autism spectrum.

As Piper tries to care for her son, with the sometimes inconsistent support of her husband Issac, she also must manage her father's rehabilitation care needs, and adjust to having a man she despised living in her home, along with his dubious Border Collie mix, Chuck Yeager. Over the ensuing months, her understanding of who her father was, and now is, changes and changes her. Lance begins to come to terms with his returning recollections of his many harsh and unkind actions with loved ones. Forging a close bond with his grandson Fred, he begins to find some solace in the midst of his many losses. Piper and Issac's battle to get educational services in place for their son provides an alternative and compelling narrative in the novel.

This is a moving story.


I received a Digital Review Copy of this book from First to Read and Berkeley Books in exchange for an honest review.

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