Detailed and enjoyable. 5 STARS -- Anne Sebba * The Telegraph * Compulsive ... By the end of this thrilling book, it is impossible not to cheer for these magnificent women in their flying machines. -- Kathryn Hughes * Daily Mail * Gilliess scholarship is impeccable. She pieces together their lives from logbooks, archive scraps, and fading newspaper clippings, a mosaic of ambition, hope, heartbreak, and stubbornness ... Atlantic Furies is also a necessary corrective to historys omissions, a vivd, well-researched, richly told chronicle of six women who risked everything to cross the Atlantic when the world still questioned their right even to take off. -- Fiona Sherlock * Irish Sunday Independent * What a delightful book! Written with verve, Atlantic Furies cuts across all the categories and all our expectations of the women who, in the Roaring Twenties, broke that singular glass ceiling: the aviation cockpit. This is the deeply transatlantic and transcontinental story of the pathbreaking women, from all walks of life, who dared. We all know the story of Amelia Earhart. Now we know the story of her compatriots and competitors. -- Tilar J. Mazzeo, author of The Widow Clicquot Atlantic Furies is a joy for anyone whos ever gazed down from the window seat of a trans-Atlantic flight and wondered about the intrepid women and men who braved these long, lonely miles in the earliest days of flight. I loved these fascinating stories of aviation pioneers, and cant recommend them highly enough to every frequent flier and armchair traveller. -- Mark Vanhoenacker, Boeing 787 pilot and author of the bestseller Skyfaring and Imagine a City The astounding stories of the first women aviators, who took to the skies in the 1920s all of them intrepid, determined, and remarkably stylish. -- Sue Roe, author of Hidden Portraits We now fly across oceans with careless ease, but it wasnt always so. To appreciate todays aerial freedom, we must understand those dauntless characters who went first. In Atlantic Furies, Midge Gillies offers a vivid account of the Atlantic challenge which captured the imagination of so many pioneers. The tale she narrates of the female aviators of the 1920s and 30s inspirational characters all is a fascinating one: in changing their own lives, they shaped ours. -- David Rooney, author of The Big Hop Though Earhart may be the most famous, this is a highly engaging group portrait that incorporates those lesser-known pioneers. -- Steven Carroll * Sydney Morning Herald * Praise for The Barbed-Wire University:
A valuable, fascinating, and moving book this is a riveting collection of stories about incredible resourcefulness. * The Guardian * Praise for Amy Johnson:
This diligent, vivid, and stirring biography an exceptionally thorough biography, but one that wears its research lightly, never allowing it to choke up the narrative. Her book is perceptive without being over-analytical; colourful without being over-egged and full of admiration for its subject without ever toppling into over-empathy. I was gripped, exhilarated, and moved by it. * The Sunday Telegraph * Praise for Piccadilly:
A magpies nest of a book, replete with anecdotes, sketches, and quotes Piccadilly is painstakingly researched and as busy as the Circus itself. * TLS *
