Maiden Flight

by Betty Beaty

Pamela Hughes thought the career of air stewardess the most interesting and romantic of all. She was the youngest and most eager of the embryo stewardesses on Skywide Airlines’ Air Hostess Course, enjoying every moment of her training, the excitement of her trips to colorful far-away places, and the crowning dignity of her first trans-atlantic flight.

But even the most glamorous job has its problems, and Pamela was to have her share, in the form of Roger Carson, the attractive Technical Instructor, who disapproved of women on the airline in general, and, it seemed, of Pamela in particular.

Genres: Harlequin Romance

192 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1963

About the author

As an author for Harlequin Romance, Betty Beaty published nine romance novels. She was also known as Catherine Ross, Betty Smith and Karen Campbell.

Reviews

[Reading with Cats · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, *that* marriage proposal was totally out of left field. I mean, Jesus, at least go on one date first.

[Nightwitch · Rating 4 out of 5]

So after reading a ton of nurse romances (thanks Betty Neels!) I finally got my hands on a stewardess romance, which is as much fun as I thought it would be. Our heroine dutifully passes out cigarettes to passengers (with complimentary matches) in flight, laments the fact that she has to wash all the dishes in the galley, and is appalled (although interestingly not shocked) to discover her supervising stewardess’s room empty on layover. Long flights have “a haze of blue smoke” in the cabin from all the cigarettes, and they frequently stop for refueling, including an unplanned trip to the Iceland airport (not, alas, described in detail).

The hero, somewhat obnoxiously, is “The Chief Technical Officer” of the entire airline, and his chief points of interest seem to be that (1) he is good looking and (2) he is aloof and displays no real interest in the heroine. Since she is twenty-one, obviously she develops an immediate thing for him. There are an assortment of misunderstandings, each of which is conscientiously resolved, and the big misunderstanding is patently ridiculous (he thinks she’s taking another job, which obviously he would know is not the case when she continues showing up to work) but Pamela has a big dramatic all-the-sparkle-has-gone-out-of-my-life-forever internal drama for several pages anyway. This is very much one of those book where the real romance is between the heroine and her job and the hero is more or less incidental. And my assumption is that Pamela will get fired as soon as she and the hero (Roger Carson, who is always identified by both first and last names) get married, which actually makes the ending pretty sad.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

A sweet romance originally written in the 1950s. A young girl is training to become a stewardess and the book details her flights with the company and her longing for a certain hero.