The Jet-Set Age Enters Historical Fiction

By Camille Di Maio

Like most historical fiction authors, the idea for a story strikes when I’m not looking for it and plants itself in my imagination, growing taller than other notions until towering over the rest and demanding attention.

This was the case when I first had the idea for COME FLY WITH ME. It was a hot summer day in Austin and I was browsing the bargain section of famed indie Book People. I came across a non-fiction book about jet setting and it was like lightning had struck. As a fan of aviation and the granddaughter, daughter, and niece of pilots (military, hobby, hobby, respectively), possibilities for storytelling sprang to life.

The only problem – the 1960s were not yet considered old enough to be historical fiction. The genre was deeply attached to its WWII stronghold, with the occasional sprinkling of something ancient or something colonial. And if a book wasn’t set specifically during the war, it veered only a few years before or after. 

But the 1960s? Definitely off limits. It was nearly insulting to some to even suggest it. And I do understand that feeling. I remember being in my thirties and seeing the identical dollhouse I’d had as a child now sitting in an antique store.

The idea didn’t let go, though. It lingered through me writing seven other books until I at last brought up the idea again – and it was well-received. This was after Covid, and as I write this, I wonder if those years of pandemic rooted us so solidly in the present that it became a before/after placemark. The 1960s suddenly seemed idyllic, distant. Historical.

Thankfully, it was recently enough that I could still find and interview people who’d lived the very lives I wanted to write about. Enter World Wings International, a philanthropic organization of former Pan Am stewardesses (and a few stewards). When I settled on that legendary airline as the backbone of my story, they welcomed me into their tightly-knit ranks after a bit of a crucible in which I was vetted to see if I would honor the dignity of what they did. After all, as they said, may see stewardess stories as “mattress romps”. And that is not the image that they wanted portrayed, nor was it historically true. At least for Pan Am.

I spent much of 2020 on the phone for hours and hours with amazing women now in their eighties or so who illuminated for me the glory that had been the jet-set era. Solid silver water pitchers. Made-to-order meals with food flown in from Paris. Destinations like Hong Kong, Rome, Bombay. Celebrity gossip from first-hand witnesses. 

Feverishly, I wrote down notes, already sorting what might work in the story and what I might keep out. Until I had a landscape of possibilities that literally stretched around the globe. 

But as lush as those details were, I still need the story. The characters. The why.

This came from one fact that I learned: in the early 1960s, a stewardess was not allowed to be married. She couldn’t even be taking care of an elderly parent. She had to be one hundred percent unattached. The airline would own her schedule.

So…what if…a married woman wants to be a stewardess and conceals her status in order to get a job? And what if she has to look over her shoulder the whole time, hoping that she doesn’t get fired.

I liked it. But there had to be more.

What if…she had to join the airline because the marriage was bad? And she was not only nervous that the airline would discover her secret, but that her husband would discover her whereabouts?

Ah! Now I was on to something. And Judy was born.

Fingers flying, I soon realized that I needed another woman as a counterweight to the first. Enter Beverly. Daughter of a wealthy banker on Park Avenue. Recipient of everything her heart desires…except the freedom to live life on her terms. Beverly joins Pan Am to escape the suffocating opulence of her life, discovering along the way a family secret that draws her to the shores of Oahu.

Once the characters were determined, I peppered their adventures with many of the stories I’d learned from the women who’d been so generous with their time.

My books always have at least a sprinkle of low-heat romance, and COME FLY WITH ME is no different. As Judy and Beverly revel in the world around them, so to do they each find love in the skies. Not the “mattress romp” kind, but the kind that shows that the era brought in a new age of relationships in which the woman began to have more of a voice and experienced more equality than ever before. 

After four years of research and writing, I’m excited for COME FLY WITH ME to finally land in readers’ hands and to whisk them off to a bygone time that is now, at last, considered historical.

—

COME FLY WITH ME

It’s 1962, the dawn of the jet-set era. Hope takes flight for two Pan Am stewardesses navigating an adventurous new life in a novel about love, friendship, and escape by the bestselling author of The Memory of Us and Until We Meet.

Welcome to a glamorous gateway to the jet age.

Judy Goodman and Beverly Caldwell have different reasons for putting continents and oceans between themselves and their disparate pasts, but they have the same desire―to earn a coveted position on an elite team of stewardesses for Pan American Airlines. For Judy, running away from an oppressive marriage in small-town Pennsylvania is a risk she must take. And for Beverly, leaving behind the gilded cage of New York society will allow her to pursue a future of her own making.

Embracing the culture, etiquette, and strict rules of a thrilling and unpredictable new world above the clouds, Judy and Beverly are bound for faraway destinations and opportunities that other women dare only to dream about. But as they build a deep friendship, encounter love and danger, and discover what’s truly important, Judy and Beverly must also confront the secrets that could change their lives all over again―and forever.

PREORDER HERE

Camille left an award-winning real estate career to become a full-time writer. Along with her husband of twenty-six years, she enjoys raising their four children. She has a bucket list that is never-ending, and uses her adventures to inspire her writing. She’s lived in Texas, Colorado, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and California, and spends enough time in Hawai’i and Maine to feel like a local. She’s traveled to four continents (so far), and met Mother Teresa and Pope John Paul II. She just about fainted when she had a chance to meet her musical idol, Paul McCartney, too. Camille studied political science in college, but found working on actual campaigns much more fun. She loves to spend Saturdays at farmers’ markets and belts out Broadway tunes whenever the moment strikes. There’s almost nothing she wouldn’t try, so long as it doesn’t involve heights, roller skates, or anything illegal. Her books include:

THE MEMORY OF US – Amazon bestseller, finalist for the Holt Medallion Award for Literary Excellence.

BEFORE THE RAIN FALLS – Holt Medallion finalist, GDRWA finalist

THE WAY OF BEAUTY – Amazon bestseller in the UK and Australia

THE BEAUTIFUL STRANGERS- Pulpwood Queens Book Club Pick, Once Upon a Book Club Pick

THE FIRST EMMA – Amazon Bestseller, Pulpwood Queens Book Club Pick

UNTIL WE MEET

COME FLY WITH ME (February 2025)

Tags: featured, women writers

Category: On Writing