"The Flight Girls"

Noelle Salazar was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest, where she's been a Navy recruit, a medical assistant, an NFL cheerleader and always a storyteller. As a novelist, she has done extensive research into the Women Airforce Service Pilots, interviewing vets and visiting the training facility—now a museum dedicated to the WASP—in Sweetwater, Texas. When she’s not writing, she can be found dodging raindrops and daydreaming of her next book. Salazar lives in Bothell, Washington, with her husband and two children.

She applied the Page 69 Test to The Flight Girls, her first novel, and reported the following:

How appropriate that page 69 of The Flight Girls so perfectly encapsulates so much about Audrey's arc in this story.

Audrey Coltrane is a woman quite evolved for the era. She doesn't pine for a husband. Kids are not part of the future she imagines. All she wants is to fly - in every sense of the word - but mostly in planes. She craves freedom, self-sufficiency, and to live life on her own terms. But she is also a bit narrow-minded in the beginning of the story, unwilling to bend or see how life could be even sweeter were she to open herself up to love. I love how she stays true to who she is, but eventually gives in to the natural evolution of the human condition. To love and be loved isn't weakness or giving in - it is to see your wings spread fully, your glide becomes smoother, and your world that much bigger and fuller.

Visit Noelle Salazar's website.

Writers Read: Noelle Salazar.

My Book, The Movie: The Flight Girls.

--Marshal Zeringue