-
Your next favorite book
is waiting.
A Novel
by Olivia Hawker
In Roswell, New Mexico, the mystery of the unknown grips a sheltered novitiate in a haunting historical novel about fate, agency, and faith by the bestselling author of October in the Earth.
It's 1947 when Sister Mary Agnes arrives in New Mexico. Her mission is to establish a monastery in the town of Roswell, where weeks before rumors of the crash landing of an unidentified craft have triggered a crisis of faith. Residents are drifting away from the divine, awed no longer by the heavens but rather the stars.
In service to the frightened and confused, Sister Mary Agnes soon befriends Betty Campbell, a teenager marked both physically and psychically by the inexplicable event. Mary Agnes is also unsettlingly drawn to Harvey, an attentive handyman refurbishing the monastery―and a firsthand witness to the crash. But as Mary Agnes tries to guide her wayward friends back to the church, it's the fantastic and the forbidden that begin to loom large in her imagination.
Thrown into her own crisis of doubt, Mary Agnes must choose whether to uphold the order in which she came of age or embrace the truth she feels in her heart, despite its terrifying complexity.
"For fans of Ray Bradbury, this is a story of strange events, forbidden love, and how far we go to protect the institutions of faith and order. The Stars and Their Light will utterly change you." —Jillian Forsberg, author of The Rhino Keeper
This information about The Stars and Their Light was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Olivia Hawker is the Washington Post bestselling author of October in the Earth; The Fire and the Ore; The Rise of Light; The Ragged Edge of Night; and One for the Blackbird, One for the Crow, a finalist for the Washington State Book Award and the WILLA Literary Award. Olivia resides in Victoria, British Columbia, with her husband and several naughty cats. For more information, visit www.hawkerbooks.com.
If you liked The Stars and Their Light, try these:
by Megan Giddings
Published 2026
From the award-winning, critically-acclaimed author of Lakewood and The Women Could Fly, a dazzling novel about two brilliant sisters and what happens to their undeniable bond when a mysterious and possibly perilous new world beckons.
by Sue Monk Kidd
Published 2021
An extraordinary story set in the first century about a woman who finds her voice and her destiny, from the celebrated number one New York Times bestselling author of The Secret Life of Bees and The Invention of Wings.
by Diane Setterfield
Published 2019
A richly imagined, powerful new novel about how we explain the world to ourselves, ourselves to others, and the meaning of our lives in a universe that remains impenetrably mysterious.
Harvard is the storehouse of knowledge because the freshmen bring so much in and the graduates take so little out.
Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!
Can you name the title?
Test your book knowledge with our daily trivia challenge!
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
