Great Circle

An unforgettable saga of a story, primarily centered around a female aviator Marian Graves, who we follow from her incredible birth and the loss of her parents aboard a sinking luxury liner during the Great War to a remote Montana ranch where she's raised by her eccentric uncle alongside her twin brother. A chance encounter with barn-storming stunt pilots ignites her life-long passion for flying, and we are off on her grand adventures, following along as she takes chances, married and leaves her abusive husband, and eventually pushes to become the first pilot to circumvent the globe by flying over the North and South Poles.
A story in the present is interspersed with Marian's narrative – a young up-and-coming star (think Kristen Stewart right after the Twilight movies) gets the role of a life-time when she's hired to play Marian in a new film. While her story is less interesting, it provides a context with Marian's and was well-written and insightful.
But it's Marian we want to follow, and follow we do, through a life lived at full throttle, full of triumphs and losses, but always with an eye toward the sky and the freedom it offers.