Celestial Lights

A beautiful, heartbreaking novel about ambition, love and space from the award-winning author of the Women’s Prize longlisted Wandering Souls.

28 January, 1986: Moments after launch, the Challenger shuttle falls from the sky. At the same time, in a small English village, Oliver Ines is born.

Ollie spends his childhood in a bedroom covered in glow-in-the-dark wallpaper, bearing the planets and stars. Decades later, he has become one of the most renowned astronauts of his time. When an enterprising billionaire approaches him to lead a landmark, ten-year mission to the distant moon Europa, Ollie cannot resist the call of history.

As the mission advances deeper into uncharted territory, Ollie finds himself retreating into the past: his school days and years in the Navy, relationships found and lost, becoming a husband and father. But will the world he remembers still be waiting for him when he returns?

Celestial Lights is a breathtaking story of fate, love, and sacrifice that questions what we owe ourselves and our loved ones, when our ambitions and loyalties collide.