Celestial Lights

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

January 28, 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 unchartered 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, ten years later, 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.