GIRL ON THE WING

This fits right into that Light Summer Reading slot with Miami Beach and a luxury hotel setting for the story of Carol Thompson. She has abandoned the pursuit of unhappiness in Greenwich Village and applied as a trainee in the school for air hostesses run by the Magda International Airlines on the fourteenth floor of a deluxe hotel. There she not only makes new friends but becomes involved with the company psychologist, Ray Duer, with whom she falls very much in love, and with Nick Grangwyn, a gambler with whom she may not associate because of the school's reputation. Tragedy hits two of her friends, she turns to Nat for a somewhat psychologically preposterous sexual encounter and almost jeopardizes her chances at the school. But she pulls herself together in time to complete her course, help another friend become happily engaged to a millionaire and write a happy ending with Ray. The extravagant atmosphere of Miami, the surprisingly copious details of fashion and makeup -- and a somewhat brash first person narration -- should put this into idling feminine hands.