Circling the Sun by Paula McLain

Before Kenya was Kenya, little Beryl Clutterbuck roamed free as a lion cub on her father's estate overlooking the Great Rift Valley.  Her mother had found life in Africa too hard and had returned to England with Beryl's younger brother.  She would not see her again for 20 years.  Her father was a gifted horse trainer, a skill Beryl would inherit.  Life in the colonial ex-pat community was both restraining and morally and ethically hypocritical.  Beryl would struggle with all of it and grow up to be Beryl Markham.  This fictional biography is every bit as engaging as The Paris Wife, also by McLain.  Beryl is fiercely independent but susceptible to the trials and tribulations of a complicated love life.  Behind it all is her love of Africa - her passion for it's wildness, her fear for what it might become, and her desire to fly above it all.  A fascinating read.  Now I need to find a copy of West with the Night, Markham's own memoir of her historic flight over the Atlantic.