Sometimes We Fly - Cheyenne Blue

My wife, when we first started dating, owned a black and chrome 650cc Honda motorbike, and thus, I began my pillion passenger career. I’d never ridden on a motorcycle before. I had no experience other than the tiny 50cc minibikes at the local fair before that attraction was shut down for OH&S reasons. I still remember riding behind my wife and the feeling of metaphorically letting go. The feeling of flying while hugged into the back of my favourite person.

Motorbikes play a large part in Sometimes We Fly. It begins with Jac who runs a motorbike touring company from her garage. Tourists paying for the chance to ride across the Sydney Harbour Bridge and all the surrounding areas as a pillion on one of Jac’s machines: Norton, BMW, or Honda Goldwing.

Motorbikes were never something that had entered Maren, the ‘face of Australia’s nightly news’ McEvoy’s mind until she purchases the house next door in a move from Melbourne to Sydney to repair her struggling relationship with her sixteen-year-old daughter, Orli. A daughter who served community service for crashing a car during a joy-ride in Melbourne. A daughter who breaks into Jac’s garage and attempts to take the BMW for a bit of a spin. Suddenly motorbikes are a part of Maren’s life.

Orli is an interesting character. A sixteen-year-old written very well and I won’t give it away but the theme of Sometimes We Fly could be written not just for Maren and Jac but also for Orli. She is a very good secondary character and quite dominant for reasons that are explained in the story. If anything, she is the string that ties Jac and Maren, tugging the two women together.

There is an authenticity to this book. To the grittiness of potential exposure to the juvenile justice system, to how clients can behave with tourism operators, to friendships that last, to the very real dialogue, and to quiet moments. Everything is given its space to breathe.

Sometimes We Fly is about finding your person, taking that step, perhaps to fall but then suddenly soaring. Sometimes We Fly is about sitting at rock bottom yet finding yourself clutching a pair of hands that lift you up so that flying seems the obvious next step. This story delves into aspects from coming out, to trust, to law-breaking and reparations, and how sometimes it’s really difficult to start the run up to launch into the air. Sometimes all it takes is a ground crew of pom-pom wavers to give you that lift. Sometimes We Fly is Cheyenne Blue’s latest and I’m a huge fan.

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