Airspeed Oxford: the adventures of Joan Yu

"Airspeed Oxford" is a novel about a translator for the secret service, Joan Yu, a young woman of Chinese, English and French descent, raised in England and educated at Oxford. After her father's death, Joan receives a memory box that includes an early formula for invisibility and buried plans for a secret aircraft, designed during WWII. This novel follows Joan's journey quest to develop a patent for invisibility and a new Airspeed Oxford, with the help of a few friends: a professor, a co-agent and a scientist living in the desert. Along the way, Joan meets a long lost aunt, confronts death, realizes childhood dreams and falls in love.

Erna Cooper was born and raised in Southern California. She studied fine art and theatre at New York University, holds a B.A. in English, from UCLA, and graduate degrees, in Modern Languages and Literature, from Oxford University. She has produced theatre at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, in Scotland, published writing on women’s health and the environment, and has covered news, on space science and technology, for the Austrian Times.