Touching The Clouds

By Bonnie Leon

        All Kate Evans has ever wanted is to be a pilot, so she leaves behind her fiancé on their wedding day and heads north to Alaska. Here she can realize her dream of being a bush pilot, and it is not long before she has a job doing just that. But she is a woman in a man’s world, and many customers expect to see a male pilot. She has to be not just as good as the men, but better. She is attracted to fellow flier Mike, but who is Paul Anderson and why does he live alone in the bush?

Perhaps the star of this engaging novel is Alaska itself, and Ms Leon treats her readers to many lyrical descriptions of its wild, pristine beauty. Anybody expecting this to be another novel filled with a lone woman’s struggles in a male-dominated society will be pleasantly surprised by how much else there is within these covers. Kate has her adventures and brushes with prejudice, but overall one of the uplifting things about the book are the friendships she forges with the other Alaskans. Ms Leon paints a compelling picture of a frontier where people help each other and life can be hard but is ultimately rewarding. Kate has her faith to sustain here too, but Paul’s tragic past has caused him to turn away from God. As this is the first in a trilogy the end of the book does not resolve everything, and I was eagerly awaiting the next installment of Kate’s adventures. Highly recommended.