The Woman Who Rode the Wind

France during the Belle Époque. When determined dreamers conquer the skies in the first flying machines, a daring new breed of adventurers capture the imagination of the world as they reach for the stars -- and awaken a new instrument of destruction. This is the historical backdrop of award-winning journalist Ed Leefeldt’s stunning literary debut, The Woman Who Rode the Wind, a romantic and richly authentic story that celebrates the indomitable spirit of the early pioneers of the clouds like Amelia Earhart and Harriet Quimby.
When a wealthy industrialist offers a prize of one million francs to the first person “to circle the Eiffel Tower in a flying machine,” it sparks an international competition that pits European powers France and Germany against each other, and in turn against the young colossus across the Atlantic, America. One woman, driven by love and the need to redeem the tarnished legacy of her father, becomes the unlikely heroine who discovers that her destiny is entwined with this new world of flight waiting to be born.