Atmosphere

In the early 1980s, physics and astronomy professor Joan Goodwin never expected to reach the stars herself. Then NASA opens its Space Shuttle program to women and scientists, and Joan applies almost on a dare. To her astonishment she is selected, and she moves to Houston to train alongside a close-knit, competitive group of astronaut candidates at the Johnson Space Center.

Amid the grind of training and the exhilaration of preparing for spaceflight, Joan finds something she never planned for: a profound, secret love for Vanessa Ford, a fellow astronaut, in an era and an institution where such a relationship could end both their careers. The novel is framed by a December 1984 mission gone wrong, cutting between the unfolding disaster and the years that led to it.

Taylor Jenkins Reid turns her attention to the space race and the first women in the astronaut corps. Atmosphere is a work of historical fiction and a love story about ambition, risk, and the courage it takes to reach for a life that the world would rather you not have.