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When the Signal—a mysterious transmission pulsing from the edge of the solar system— arrives, the world changes overnight. Planes are grounded, satellites fail, and speculation abounds.
With many believing it could be first contact with extraterrestrial life, humanity holds its breath. But for Alex, a thirtysomething lawyer who's spent years distancing himself from the unexplainable, the Signal feels deeply personal—the opening of an old wound.
Decades ago, Alex and a girl named Ana both vanished for thirty-six hours while on vacation in Palm Springs. When they returned, dazed but unharmed, the six-year-olds' account of the experience had all the hallmarks of an alien abduction. The media frenzy that followed made them famous, and the long months of child stardom, of talk shows and sitcom cameos, forged a seemingly unbreakable bond between them—until the mystery behind their disappearance began to tear them apart.
Now, with the world on edge and the Signal growing stronger, Alex is drawn back to the one person who might have answers. Ana—now a professional advocate for experiencers of extraterrestrial contact—is leading a retreat near Palm Springs, a stone's throw from the site of their childhood disappearance. As the former best friends tentatively reunite, what starts as a quest to confront the reality of their original experience becomes a larger reckoning with friendship, faith, family, and truth itself—what it means to see the stories we tell ourselves for what they really are.
With the imaginative soul and propulsive storytelling of Station Eleven and The Ministry of Time, Voyagers is a thrillingly original and brilliantly ambitious literary debut about friendship at the end of the world.
"This satisfying deep dive into the worlds of ufology and child stardom is sure to hook fans of first contact stories." —Publishers Weekly
"Readers who miss Mulder and Scully's lighthearted side should dig in—but there's satisfaction here for anyone." —Kirkus Reviews
"Charlton slides easily into flashbacks in between the scenes in the present, dovetailing Alex and Ana's childhood relationship and their burgeoning adult one. The result is a novel that explores the strength and power of non-romantic love." —Booklist
"In her debut, Charlton writes with the elegant prose, cohesive plotlines, and believable characters of a seasoned author....The feeling of uncertainty and doubt around their experience gives depth to the alien-abduction trope, making this read as a blend of sci-fi and literary fiction... Interrogating the importance of friendship, what friends owe each other, and what makes a narrative true, this novel will appeal to fans of Gabrielle Zevin who enjoy the nuance of conspiracy." —Library Journal
"In the tradition of Gabrielle Zevin's Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, Meg Charlton's Voyagers is a finely written and propulsive novel about the enduring power of friendship. It takes on big issues: the reliability of memory, the price of childhood fame, the ways adults use children for their own purposes. It's also a book about aliens, geared for terrestrials. Which is to say it's complex and human, anchored by a beating heart." —Joshua Henkin, author of Morningside Heights
"In Voyagers, Meg Charlton explores the connections between memory, storytelling, and truth. Against the backdrop of a global crisis, her characters contend with the lasting pain and confusion of a personal crisis. This novel grapples with the possibility of extraterrestrial life, but even more so with the possibility of friendship that is generous and forgiving. A delightful and moving debut." —Helen Phillips, author of Hum and The Need
This information about Voyagers 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.
Meg Charlton lives in New York City. Voyagers is her first novel.
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