Olive Murphy is a fictional ER nurse in Andie Burke’s romance novel Fly with Me (2023). Olive has an intense fear of airplanes, and when she gets on her first flight to run in a race at Disney World, she isn’t thinking about anything other than surviving the plane—at least until there’s an in-flight emergency. Despite her airplane-related fears, Olive leaps into action and saves someone’s life.
Olive’s quick thinking lands her online and in front of the press. More importantly, though, it also puts her on Stella Soriano’s radar, which will change the course of both women’s lives. Described as “type A” by the book jacket, Stella is the copilot on Olive’s flight, and she has a proposition for Olive: What if the two of them pretended to date? Stella is seeking a long-overdue promotion at work, and the press from Olive saving someone on her flight might do the trick. Olive also wants to capitalize on her fifteen minutes of fame, but she’d rather not do it alone; having gorgeous, steady Stella by her side sounds like a good plan. The two agree to start a fake relationship, but very quickly the line between real and ruse starts to blur.
Fly with Me is a meet-cute with fake dating. It addresses themes of loss, self-worth, and mental health. Much of Stella’s struggles stem from her father’s recent Parkinson’s diagnosis, over which she has no control. She wants to make captain as soon as possible to make him proud. Olive is struggling, too. Her brother has been in a coma for nearly a year with no hope of recovery. Since the accident, Olive has kept herself busy by completing Jake’s bucket list, including that Disney run that led Olive to Stella, but no amount of distraction can prevent Olive’s panic attacks and depressive episodes. The novel explores relationships, both biological and chosen, as well as the ways in which people stand up for what they believe is right.
In terms of bi representation, Olive is out before the start of the novel. The text itself uses the label “bisexual” twice: the first time is on a hike when Olive calls herself “a horny bisexual” in her head, and then at a party, when one of Stella’s coworkers assumes that Olive is a lesbian; she corrects him only in her head. Overall, Olive generally prefers to date women. Her best friend Derek notes, early on, “You’ve dated men on occasion.” Almost 100 pages later, Olive tells Stella in a text: “I mostly date women.”
In addition to the word “bi”, Olive also describes herself as “queer” when discussing the larger LGBT community, such as when she’s reading the online comments on her TODAY show interview. It comes as a relief to Olive to find mostly positive comments, aside from “the requisite religious or conservative trolls who always had something to say anytime a queer person did anything”.
Though Olive and Stella’s sapphic romance is the novel’s selling point, themes of (bi)sexuality are not at the forefront of the plot. Fly with Me focuses instead on what it means to fall in love when everything else seems to be falling apart.