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A coming-of-age tale set on Earth and in space, Celestial Lights is perfect for fans of Orbital and Normal People.
January 28, 1986: soon after launch the Challenger shuttle falls out of the sky and into the sea. At the same time, Oliver Ines, the most renowned astronaut of his time, is born. Celestial Lights is his story.
His idyllic, if lonely, childhood is spent in a small English village, where he falls in love with Philly, his neighbour's niece. During his college years in London and a stint in the Navy, his fascination with the celestial sharpens into a focus often mistaken for aloofness. When the enterprising and elusive billionaire Mark Massey taps him to train as an astronaut and lead a mission to Europa, Oliver must make a choice that will send his whole world spinning.
He is accompanied on his journey by only three crew members who must learn to depend on each other. Unreachable by anyone on Earth, Oliver details the voyage in a private log, mourning the life he has left behind, and dreaming of a future that only he can bring about.
Celestial Lights is a portrait of a complicated man whose unparalleled understanding of the universe doesn't always translate into stellar relationships on Earth. It explores the sacrifices required to achieve greatness―but more importantly, the idea that greatness is not always what it seems. A breathtaking tale of memory, personal choices, and the relationships that define us, Celestial Lights will make every reader marvel at the night sky while cherishing the connections that make our planet home.
"The novel beautifully explores loneliness, memory, belonging, grief, and the cost of chasing one's dreams. A quiet, poignant, and deeply human novel." —Kirkus Reviews
"[A] chilling portrait of the cost of ambition." —Publishers Weekly
"Pin's sophomore novel is a magnificent meditation on ambition and the vanity of legacy. Celestial Lights melds sharp insight with great heart, a success in every genre it bends into." ―Nicola Dinan, author of Bellies and Disappoint Me
"In Celestial Lights, Pin has created a work that fascinates, mesmerizes, and surprises. Its tone, atmosphere, and preoccupations are strangely addictive, and I found myself unable to put it down or look away. A wonderful and singular reading experience." ―Jenny Mustard, author of What a Time to Be Alive
This information about Celestial Lights 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.
Cecile Pin grew up in Paris and New York City. She moved to London at eighteen to study philosophy at University College London and received an MA at King's College London. She is a 2021 London Writers Award winner. Wandering Souls, her first novel, was long-listed for the Women's Prize for Fiction, the Carnegie Medal, and the Prix Femina étranger.
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