FLY ME TO THE MOON

A flight attendant’s love life is prone to turbulence.

In her first novel for adults, Noël sticks closely to the chick-lit formula, setting up Atlas Airlines air hostess Hailey Lane for a proposal from her four-year-live-in pilot/boyfriend Michael on page one, only to have her walk in on him in bed with another man 12 pages later. The inevitable period of mourning and readjustment to the single life follows, with the role of sage best friend filled by Hailey’s gay fellow attendant, Clay. Despite relocation to a seedy apartment, and a bad case of sunburn during a layover in Puerto Rico, Hailey is soon back in the dating pool, fancying first Dane Richards, who returns her lost manuscript (she is an aspiring novelist in her spare time) after an onboard mix-up, but getting more deeply involved with wealthy Maxwell Dunne, until she realizes that, despite his suite at the Paris Ritz and his excellent kissing ability, size really does matter. We know that Dane is really “the one” because Hailey’s dealings with him are fraught with misunderstanding. Meanwhile, the reader gets to hear plenty of gripes about the downside of her job: “They expected us to work overbooked flights with half the staff, search the airplane for bombs before boarding, defend ourselves against violent passengers with dialogue learned in a Verbal Judo seminar, and act as an unarmed human shield for pilots who, securely locked in their cockpit, were now packing heat.” Having endured another dubious affair, on Mykonos, Clay’s declaration that he’s leaving New York and a round of layoffs, Hailey is finally rewarded with a publishing deal for her novel and the love—and contractual advice (he’s a literary agent)—of Dane.

As predictable as an onboard safety video.