Three voices, three stories, three generations, all woven within the fabric of “family.” Witness the good, the bad and the love in a family riddled with flaws, yet in the end has the glue that gives strength and teaches lessons on life.

Piper couldn’t see that her young son, Fred had a disability. He was serious, quiet and would zero in on his current interests with an obsessive enthusiasm to the exclusion of all else, including the social and curricular requirements of school. The diagnosis of autism sent her spiraling into a world of depression and desperation as she isolated her grief.

When Piper’s overbearing and uncompromising father suffers a severe heart attack that left him damaged and unable to rationalize on his own, she takes on the burden of caring for him. Was it to prove to herself that she was a better person than he?

FLYING AT NIGHT by Rebecca L. Brown is an emotionally taut tale of a woman floundering in the turmoil that has become her life. As she struggles like an island against a tsunami of events that threaten to pull her under, she will find salvation and hope in the most unexpected places as both her son and her father make a connection that is both beautiful, unique and healing.

Certainly not an upbeat tale, I did struggle at times with the darkness that shrouded Piper, some self-imposed, some blamed on her “past,” leaving her future looking as black as a thunder cloud. I wanted Pipe to own her feelings, to recognize her more than her weaknesses, but I was captivated by her love for her son, even if she failed to see or act on his problems until long after she should have.

The true beauty of this tale was in the sincere and honest actions and emotions from both Fred and Lance. Take a chance on this story, once it blossoms, it becomes a bouquet of emotion and growth in a garden called family.

I received a complimentary ARC edition from Berkley!

Publisher: Berkley (April 10, 2018)
Publication Date: April 10, 2018
Genre: Women's Fiction
Print Length: 334 pages
Available from: Amazon | Barnes & Noble
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Piper's son is a good boy. He has obsessions with things. For a while airplanes fascinated him. Then he moved on to another subject. He also has some trouble learning but he's passing his grades. She's trying to train him not to say things too bluntly. But he doesn't really have a problem. That's not what the school thinks...

Berkley and Net Galley let me read this book for review (thank you). It will be published April 10th.

While they are testing her son, she's not happy about her marriage anymore. It's like he's never home and all he talks about are his cases. He's no help at raising their son and now she's working hard to keep the son from being labeled.

The next crisis is when her father has a heart attack. He's a pilot, runs every day, plays squash, and he collapsed in the steam room. They initially tell them he's brain dead. In time, he recovers enough to come home. But her mother refuses to live with him anymore and arranges a nursing home for him. When Piper goes there to drop him off, she won't leave him there. It's an ugly facility and she's not impressed with the staff. So she brings him home since he can't be alone.

Living with a son who is on the Autism spectrum and a father she hated when she was young is not easy on Piper. Most of her father's memories are gone. He's changing from who he used to be. He also gets along very well with her son.

This is a story of changes in life. Not only does she learn to love her father, she realizes how much they are alike and it bothers her. When you've been taught perfection is the only thing acceptable, you have to learn that life doesn't happen that way...

Rebecca L Brown's debut, Flying at Night, is one of my favorite books so far this year. It took me a bit to get through it because it brought up a lot of memories of my own upbringing, and I had to stop and ponder some things. The voices the author has given the three main characters, Piper, her autistic son, Fred, and her father, Lance, are just absolutely amazing. I felt like I knew each of these characters intimately by the time I was finished and was fully invested in their lives and the outcomes of their situations. Piper is an artist who has chosen to stay home with her son, Fred, who is showing signs of being on the autism scale, She is very much in denial about it. Fred's voice in his entries in the book are written in such a way that the reader knows he has some kind of disorder, but they are so funny and wise and filled with his personality that you cannot help just love this character and hope for the best for him. Piper's husband, Isaac, is a lawyer for The Innocence Project, and is away from home a lot working, so Piper feels like she is handling Fred's challenges as if she were a single parent. In the midst of this crisis, her father suffers a heart attack while playing squash, and is without oxygen for so long that everyone thinks he will never recover. Lance was a pilot, "The Silver Eagle," and we come to understand through his voice, and Piper's descriptions, that Lance was a terrible father and husband, emotionally and verbally abusive. No one is really that interested in him surviving, but miraculously he does. The beauty of this book is seeing how this family handles all the challenges that come with these situations, and hearing the voices of all the characters as the story progresses. Lance comes out of his coma, starts to recover, and his traumatic experience changes his personality profound way. All the characters in the book have opportunities for redemption in some form or another, and upon turning the last "page," I just signed with pleasure. This is a great book, and I highly recommend it.

This is an impressive debut novel that examines the "sandwich" generation" in a rather extreme case. The characters are complex and real in a way that will make you empathize and at times dislike them all. Anyone who has had to balance parenting a child and a parent at the same time will appreciate the nuanced look at this family and their quiet triumphs.

Rebecca L. Brown’s debut Flying at Night is an emotion-filled book with great insight into the autistic mind, confronting a childhood raised with an abusive parent, caring for a parent suffering brain damage after a heart attack, and living in an unfulfilling marriage, yet rising above the obstacles and finding growth and self-realization. Piper is the daughter of an abusive father, Lance, who was a Sully-like pilot who had saved lives while piloting through a plane crash. Piper has broken pieces from her childhood living under his abuse. She now is married and has a nine-year-old son, Fred, who becomes diagnosed on the autism spectrum. Piper and Fred are close, and she puts all her focus on helping her son maneuver the world, feeling like her husband, Isaac, isn’t present enough to help. Then she is also left to care for her father who has been left brain damaged after a heart attack, and she sees quite a different person than the one she grew up with. The story is told in alternating chapters from the viewpoint of Piper, Fred, and Lance. Between the skillful alternating points of views, wonderful imagery, and story of flying through the various challenges, this book really grabbed my heart.

What an astounding book! It is told through the narrative of 3 people: Piper, her son Fred who is on the autistic spectrum, and her father, Lance, who has suffered a personality changing stroke. There was a certain sameness at the beginning but quickly each person's personality became clear. I found it interesting that the author was able to get into the minds of all 3 and relate their thoughts. I would like to know more about the author. I would guess that she has intimate knowledge of children with autism and
stroke victims. There were a few details that niggled at me - Fred seems way too smart for a 9 year old even one with a high IQ and the ending was a bit contrived- but I will forgive them. An excellent, thought provoking book.
Thanks to Berkeley Publishing and Netgalley for an eARC of this book.

Piper is a woman dealing with a lot of issues. She had an emotionally abusive father, a husband she feels isn't there for her and a son who she is just realizing is on the autism spectrum. The story is told from different perspectives: Piper, her dad Lance and her son Fred. I have to admit that after the first chapter I hated Piper and almost gave up on the book. Then the second chapter was from the point of view of her son and it was interesting to see someone's take on how the brain of someone on the spectrum processes. During the book Piper's dad has a heart attack and suffer's brain damage from lack of oxygen and Piper is left to care for the man she has hated for the way he treated her. It delves in to a lot of family issues and I was quite unsympathetic towards Piper for much of the book. But the book hit on a lot of buttons that are relatable to me, i.e. caring for a child with a disability and a family member who is a different person after a brain injury. It was a good story, the only reason I gave it a 4 instead of 5 is because I really didn't like Piper until about the last two chapters and because the interactions with the school system weren't realistic for me as someone who works in a school and has dealt with the schools from the standpoint of the parent of a child with a disability.
I would still recommend it.

A story that will remain with you long after you have finished the book.

Piper grew up with a father that was controlling and verbally abusive. She tried to be different with her own family, but then her father has a heart attack and she needs to care for him as well as her autistic son. Love, relationships and change.

Definitely an emotionally charged book all about the relationships in a family- father and daughter, husband and wife, father and son & mother and son. The author did a wonderful job using the events in the story to showcase the different relationships in this family; the complexity of each through events in the family's past and present and the way events can change these relationships and even help heal them. It was particularly interesting that two major health issues become the catalyst for the changes in the family. One is a major episode to the father/grandfather, "The Silver Eagle," that leaves his memory impaired. This impairment leads him to actually treat his family members more kindly and he doesn't remember many of the acts of cruelty he visited upon his family in the height of his power as patriarch. This is a complicated situation. Do you let go of the hurt, anger & resentment toward a man who treated you badly your whole life if they are a different person because they cannot remember their past?
Piper (his grown daughter) is thrust into the role of his caretaker and grapples with these very questions. Meanwhile she is coming to grips with the diagnosis of Autism for her son. Piper is caught in a whirling storm of family drama and upheaval. As always, events like these are an opportunity to grow and change. I enjoyed watching Piper do just that.

Beautifully written characters full of wonder and flaws all told with compassion and wit. I couldn't put it down.

This is a beautifully written novel . Fred, an autistic child, is poignantly portrayed. When he connects with his brain-damaged grandfather, he teaches his mother and others what it means to learn what really matters in life.

I received an email that Netgalley recommends, so I read the synopsis - I had to read this book.
I was thrilled I got the opportunity!

Her son elevates mother to first-class status she craves in her father's eyes.
He sees her and her son.
...then it all changes...

A mother of a child on the spectrum is a different type of mother- their children
do not do what "every" child does- like climb on a bus, play with others, school social interactions.
Dealing with children experts telling us how our child is!!!

I loved the viewpoints changing.
I fell into this family. I felt a part of them. I felt their struggles. I laughed with them.

I will remember this book for a long time.
I hope she writes more- sign me up to read more