Description

Unlikely best friends Thomas and Grace are bound together by questions of faith, love and astronomy in this dazzling summer read from the #1 bestselling author.

READERS HAVE FALLEN IN LOVE WITH ENLIGHTENMENT:
‘Vibrates with wonder’
‘I absolutely loved it’
‘Full of magic’
‘Exquisite…strange and wonderful and unpredictable’
‘This book tore my heart apart then put it back together again’

Thomas Hart and Grace Macaulay have lived all their lives in the small Essex town of Aldleigh. Though separated in age by three decades, the pair are kindred spirits – torn between their religion and their desire to explore the world. But their friendship is ruptured by the arrival of love.

Over the course of twenty years, Thomas and Grace will find their lives brought back into orbit as a devastating story of passion and scientific adventure unfolds and Aldleigh’s unique mysteries are revealed.

‘It’s glorious… A beautiful, memorable novel’ OBSERVER

‘Sarah Perry just gets better and better’ INDEPENDENT

‘Absorbing… A romance worthy of Emily Bronte’ WALL STREET JOURNAL

‘Gorgeous…ethereal’ GUARDIAN

‘Sarah Perry creates worlds to disappear into… Beautiful, vivid’ BBC

*LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2024*
*A BOOK OF THE YEAR FOR THE GUARDIAN, DAILY TELEGRAPH AND DAILY MAIL*

Publisher Review

Gauzy and unhurried, a genteel novel of inner space. It’s luxuriously – defiantly – old-fashioned… Perry has always produced gorgeous prose, and she has found a new, ethereal register in this book * Guardian * A genre-bending novel of ideas, ghosts and hidden histories… A heartfelt paean to the consolations of the sublime, where religion and science meet * Telegraph * A rich, surprising book that dazzles and dizzies the reader. It balances reason with belief, excels in both ideas and action, and, though firmly placed in Perry’s homeland of Essex, it’s a book with cosmic reach * Financial Times * Extraordinary and ambitious… What Perry has done in this layered, intelligent and moving book is to construct a kind of quantum novel, one that asks us to question conventional linear narratives and recognise instead what is ever-present in Perry’s luminous vision of Essex: truth, beauty and love * Observer * Dazzling… Faith and science can inspire out-of-time cosmic wonder, but as Perry beautifully demonstrates here, so, too, can the novel * Daily Mail * Tender, ruminative, philosophical * Times Literary Supplement * Sarah Perry just gets better and better… A fat, satisfying, grown-up novel – rich in plot, characters, ideas, structure, and atmosphere… It hangs together as a resplendent whole, shining like a night sky * Independent * Gorgeously written… A beautiful, compassionate and memorable book, one that will repay reading more than once * New Scientist * Perry has returned with another cracker. A dazzling novel, full of big ideas about religion and science, love and friendship * i * It’s glorious, doing what her books do best: intertwining a love story with reams of esoteric learning and big ideas… This is a beautiful, memorable novel * Observer, *Books to Look Out For 2024* *