Challenger Park by Stephen Harrigan

Released: 2006

Challenger Park by Stephen Harrigan is an AMAZING novel about a woman astronaut named Lucy Kincheloe as she prepares for her first space mission.

Lucy is a mother of two children and married to another astronaut, Brian, whose ego threatens his own future career as an astronaut. In the midst of dealing with her husband's animosity and her son's serious asthmatic problems, Lucy finds herself drifting closer to the trainer for her space mission, Walt Womack. In addition to Lucy's life drama, readers are indulgently treated to the vast details surrounding preparation and training for an actual mission to outer space!


As a reader, I have lots of wonderful things to say about Challenger Park. First, Stephen Harrigan proves he is an excellent author by making what could have been a potentially boring subject into something so interesting that I couldn't put the book down. Readers will not need to be sci-fi nerds or space enthusiasts to have genuine interest in space missions and the scenarios presented by Challenger Park. Lucy's character is extremely intelligent, which makes her incredibly intriguing and leaves readers eager to learn how she deals with stress and the obstacles thrown at her. We also learn numerous facts and tidbits about the history of space exploration and are given an inside look on the lives of astronauts.

Readers will find that Stephen Harrigan performed extensive and wonderful research to put Challenger Park together, and I highly recommend this book as a must-read.