Showing results for "Velocity" in Historical Fiction

It’s spring 1919, and the Great War has ended. New life flourishes on the red cliffs of the Northern Isles of Scotland—sea pinks and primrose, puffins and guillemots. But this windswept corner of the world harbors a dark secret. Rose Van Etten has always reveled in danger and defiance. When the war started, she went from racing cars to driving ambulances and learned of an insidious spy ring from a dying soldier. Now that the war is over, she ventures to Scotland in search of the truth.

It's 1964 in the USSR, and unbeknownst even to Premier Khrushchev himself, the Soviet space program is a sham. Well, half a sham. While the program has successfully launched five capsules into space, the Chief Designer and his team have never successfully brought one back to Earth. To disguise this, they've used twins. But in a nation built on secrets and propaganda, the biggest lie of all is about to unravel. Because there are no more twins left.

Ellen, the narrator of Boyd's previous novel, The Revolution of Little Girls, this time pierces the heart of the sexual revolution in her quest to find a woman hero or - by default - to become one. Ferociously paced, Terminal Velocity delineates six wonderfully engaging characters: Artemis Foote, for whom being rich, talented, and beautiful is a kind of game; Jordan, a messianic fugitive who becomes Ellen's lover; Amethyst Woman, a Marxist/Leninist dentist; Ross, a red-diaper baby and now a columnist for Ramparts; and Pearl, an art history professor turned hippie.