‘Incredible’ book wins ‘best historical fiction of the year’ | Books | Entertainment
Following the Goodreads 2025 Choice Awards, one book is standing out among the rest when it comes to historical fiction.
Taylor Jenkins Reid takes home the prize for Reader’s Favourite Historical Fiction Book of the Year, with Atmosphere.
Atmosphere is a historical fiction romance novel that follows Joan Goodwin, a fictional astronaut in NASA’s Space Shuttle program in the early 1980s.
The book’s blurb reads: “Joan Goodwin has been obsessed with the stars for as long as she can remember. Thoughtful and reserved, Joan is content with her life as a professor of physics and astronomy at Rice University and as aunt to her precocious niece, Frances. That is, until she comes across an advertisement seeking the first women scientists to join NASA’s space shuttle program. Suddenly, Joan burns to be one of the few people to go to space.
“Selected from a pool of thousands of applicants in the summer of 1980, Joan begins training at Houston’s Johnson Space Center, alongside an exceptional group of fellow candidates: Top Gun pilot Hank Redmond and scientist John Griffin, who are kind and easygoing even when the stakes are highest; mission specialist Lydia Danes, who has worked too hard to play nice; warmhearted Donna Fitzgerald, who is navigating her own secrets; and Vanessa Ford, the magnetic and mysterious aeronautical engineer, who can fix any engine and fly any plane.
It continues: “As the new astronauts become unlikely friends and prepare for their first flights, Joan finds a passion and a love she never imagined. In this new light, Joan begins to question everything she thinks she knows about her place in the observable universe.
“Then, in December of 1984, on mission STS-LR9, it all changes in an instant.
“Fast-paced, thrilling, and emotional, Atmosphere is Taylor Jenkins Reid at her best: transporting readers to iconic times and places, creating complex protagonists, and telling a passionate and soaring story about the transformative power of love—this time among the stars.”
Fans of the novel have shared their thoughts on Goodreads, where the book is rated 4.34 out of five.
One reviewer said: “Incredible, incredible, incredible story (insane amount of tears were shed) & you must read it if you haven’t already.”
Another added: “I think this just changed my brain chemistry.”
“Five stars – new favourite, but also the ending didn’t have to go that hard, I wasn’t BREATHING MY GOD,” said a third.
