Circling the Sun by Paula McLain

Paula McLain writes about strong women who need men and in many ways succeed in their world in spite of them. This is a love story of Kenya and the strong women who settled it, namely Beryl Markham and Karen Blixen. Beryl was raised by her father, surrounded by men and let down by women. As an adult, she succeeded in the male dominated world of horse training and then took to the skies. She made friends with Karen but fell in love with her lover, Denys. Her whole life was spent trying to live up to the expectations of the men in her life and looking for love in all the wrong places. Paula McLain paints a beautiful portrait of a brutal world blending the harshness of the terrain and daily life with the beauty of the native people and landscape. The women of Africa are strong while the men are flawed and so the women who love them become flawed themselves.