Author Taylor Jenkins Reid is back with a brand new book entitled Atmosphere.

By Emily Champagne

You heard it right! After a two-year hiatus, Taylor Jenkins Reid is back and taking a new
approach with her latest novel Atmosphere: a high-stakes romance between two NASA
astronauts set in the 1980’s. Jenkins Reid is an Emerson College alum.

The last time we heard from Reid was back in 2022 when she published her book Carrie Soto is
Back. Although the novel boasted a compelling tale about a star tennis player from the 1990s,
she announced she was taking a break soon after its release.

Throughout her career so far, Reid has had significant success with her novels, with five of her
books in the past six years making the New York Times best-seller list.

Additionally, her book Daisy Jones and the Six was adapted into a renowned Amazon Prime
show and she just recently sold The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo to Netflix. Moreover, at
Emerson College’s 43rd annual EVVY Awards won the Alumni Award of Distinction.

While many were curious as to why she was pausing her work after such successes, Reid told
Vogue that she needed a reset to focus on something she’d never done before. While her
books were immensely popular, they almost all centered in California and focused on somewhat
famous women whose lives contained a sense of dramatic tension.

Unlike her other novels, Atmosphere features a female astronomer working in NASA’s Houston
Mission Control Center. The main character Joan Goodwin is in charge of communicating with
astronauts aboard NASA shuttles, and when we meet her, she is conversing with her love
interest, another astronaut getting launched into space. However, suddenly something goes
wrong with the rocket and it is up to Joan to continue her job all while grappling with the fact
that she could lose the person she cares about the most.

According to Jenkins Reid, while Atmosphere was out of her usual comfort zone, she wanted it
to “tell a grand, epic love story.” She aspired to create something that portrayed the elements of
life and death and where the stakes were so immediate.

To make this story real, Reid embedded herself within the Houston community. She
spent weeks learning about the space center, and understanding astronauts: whether it be their
lives, what motivated them, or simply what a day in their life looked like. She also read several
pre-existing novels including The New Guys; Shuttle, Houston; and The Six.

Upon wondering why Reid titled the work Atmosphere, she responded that “the atmosphere is
what makes it so that the earth is suitable for human life.” The atmosphere encapsulates elements
of everyday life and has the ability to vividly tell important events such as the launch of the first
space shuttle.

Atmosphere will be released on June 3, 2025, but is available to preorder today.