Love at first flight

Pippa Edwards has never fitted in. She’s autistic. She likes symmetry, synonyms, quiet, and aeroplanes. She hates surprises, noise, and anything that might throw her off balance. Like questions about who she’s dating and when she’s getting married. But her relationships have always ended before they could even properly begin.

Pippa works as an air traffic controller at a busy Johannesburg airport, so she regularly communicates with pilots. One of them is Andrew, whose voice she finds particularly pleasant. As her ten-year school reunion approaches, which she has no desire to attend, they meet in the airport café and discover they have the same problem. People are far too interested in their personal lives and offer unsolicited advice. So they make a fake-dating pact, kicking off a long flight of getting to know each other. Through many shared events, like a wedding, Christmas, and family birthdays, Andrew discovers that Pippa is a true original. She doesn’t pretend to be anyone else; she is who she is.

And Pippa finally finds a relationship that was only supposed to be pretend, but man proposes, and life disposes…