Flying by Megan Hart

Ever hear of wanderlust? Every other weekend, Stella buys a ticket on the next flight out of town and leaves her life behind. Home is a place with too many memories, and departure is the sweetest possible distraction. As soon as she arrives at her destination, Stella visits the airport bar. She orders a drink and waits for the right guy to come along. A bored businessman, a backpacker, a baggage handler just off shift. If he's into a hot, no-strings hookup, he's perfect. Each time is a thrilling escape from reality that gives the term layover a whole new meaning. When Stella meets the enigmatic Matthew in Chicago one weekend, she hits some serious turbulence. Something about him tells her she's not the only one running from the past. The connection between them is explosive, and for the first time, one taste is not enough for Stella. But returning to find a gorgeous man waiting for her is the easy part& facing the reason she's there is a whole other matter.


...I'm honestly having a hard time writing this review because I really, really don't want to repeat the synopsis and I don't know that my simple words will form coherent sentences that will express how much I enjoyed this novel. So I'll do what I always do when I'm uncertain--I'll make you a list:

• Stella is wonderfully flawed and has a ton of strength.
• Stella is honest--I loved her honesty. She refused to play games and even when she knew it would hurt, she held her ground or did the difficult thing and forced the hard conversations.
• Stella is a great mom and kind to her ex-husband's new wife (I loved that the new wife wasn't made to be the wicked witch of the west)
• Matthew was infuriating and sweet and INFURIATING.

This novel isn't really plot heavy, in my opinion. It's more character driven; you're in the interior of Stella's mind, watching Stella fall in love and unravel and mourn and deal. Deal? Yep, deal. She functions when things go not so well; she doesn't force her self to get up and suddenly soar back to life--she simply exists. I found that to be something I could strongly relate to and I appreciated those very real and honest moments. I liked that Megan Hart didn't pretty up how numbing dealing with loss and grief can be. 

As I read Flying and lived in its fog of melancholy, I found myself highlighting so sections that completely capture how painful and honest and real Stella's experience felt. 

I know you're wondering--but what about the erotic parts? Other characters? Things? Stuff?!! Yes all of those things exist and some are definitely more important than others at various times. The heat is there. The other characters are there to enhance and not distract..but for me this novel was more about the internal life of Stella.

The thing I'm pondering now is the end. It's not so much how it ended, though I'm sure if I jumped on Goodreads I'd see someone comment on it; it's the abrupt nature of it, I think. And it's weird because it's not that I didn't like it, necessarily, it's that it was not quite what I expected. I literally swiped the corner of my kindle a few times and then tapped it HARD because I thought it was frozen. HAHA. 

BUY IT: https://amzn.to/36iTcV3

ETA: This review is OLD. I'm going through our draft folders and finally posting reviews that have been sitting there for YEARS.