Release day: Under the Same Stars

Today is the official release of  Under the Same Stars by Susanne Bellamy (Ransom Women #2) (ebook, self-published). Here’s the blurb:
Gracie Ransom believes the world is a wonderful place. It is 1969, men have landed on the moon and she’s about to study Medicine at university.
Growing up in Perth, Western Australia, her childhood has been happy and secure. She’s graduated top of the state, and her future looks bright.
But like her mother, Gracie encounters barriers to her ambition simply because she is a woman in a world dominated by men. Her kind, intelligent father is an exception, encouraging her to be the best she can be. And Mike, her mechanic boyfriend at the RFDS at Jandakot Airport, tells her she can be a pilot if she wants to be.
While young men are being conscripted to fight in Vietnam, Gracie wages war against the establishment, pushing the boundaries for women’s rights, but soon discovers it is difficult for one woman make a difference.
When Mike returns from Vietnam, he’s changed, and Gracie struggles to get through to him. As Gracie fights for her place in the world, she becomes a voice against the injustices visited on her generation.
Susanne dropped by today to tell us a little about this book:
Under the Dark Moon (2023 Ruby Award finalist) tells Gracie’s parents’ story but in book 2, Gracie makes the most of opportunities that weren’t available to her mother, or even her mentor, the Flying Nurse, Sister Robyn Miller. Despite Robyn’s father’s power and position within the Western Australian aeronautical industry, she was refused a pilot position with the RFDS. However, when she offered her plane and her services for free to the WA government, they happily ‘allowed’ her to fly tens of thousands of air miles to administer the polio vaccine to remote locations in the state. Such inequalities of opportunity didn’t stop Sister Miller from pursuing her passion and commitment to social justice, and her life served as an inspiration for Gracie’s story. There is something special about reading a series, revisiting characters and settings you love, but there is also an eagerness to follow the generations of a family and see what the children make of their changing world. I hope Gracie’s story captures some of the turbulence of these changing times.
You can find out more about this book at Susanne’s website or buy it from here .