Celestial Lights
Will be published approx. on 26. March 2026
Book
Hardback
272 pages
978-0-00-870639-5 (ISBN)
Description
'Incredibly beautiful ... deeply moving' ORE AGBAJE-WILLIAMS
'I found myself unable to put it down' JENNY MUSTARD
'Masterful ... melds sharp insight with great heart' NICOLE DINAN
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.
'I found myself unable to put it down' JENNY MUSTARD
'Masterful ... melds sharp insight with great heart' NICOLE DINAN
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.
Reviews / Votes
Praise for Celestial Lights:'Pin's sophomore novel is a masterful meditation on ambition and the vanity of legacy. Celestial Lights melds sharp insight with great heart' Nicole Dinan, author of Disappoint Me
'Strangely addictive ... 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
'A thoughtful and compelling exploration of human ambition, perfect for fans of Interstellar' Alice Winn, author of In Memoriam
'With this incredibly beautiful and emotive second novel, Cecile Pin has proved once again that she truly knows every corner of what it is to be human. Celestial Lights is a deeply moving story about the cost of the lives we live that I will be thinking about for a very long time' Ore Agbaje-Williams, author of The Three of Us
'Truly lovely ... Celestial Lights has the scope of an epic, but subtly rendered' Jo Hamya, author of The Hypocrite
Praise for Wandering Souls:
'I raced through it. Beautiful, brilliant, unflinching' R.F. Kuang, author of Katabasis
'This lean, affecting book packs a mighty punch and heralds a dazzling new talent' Observer
'Powerful ... a bold debut that breaks new ground' Sunday Times
'A deeply humane and genre-defying work of love and uncompromising hope through a long-overdue portrayal of Vietnamese life in the UK' Ocean Vuong, author of The Emperor of Gladness
'A heartbreaking novel ... a deeply affecting reckoning with history' i-D
'A poignant saga with its grieving, beating heart firmly in the right place, and heralds the arrival of an ambitious and promising new talent' Guardian
'A powerful story of courage, love and unwavering hope'
Marie Claire
'Something special - a polyvocal novel, an essay on inherited trauma and a quiet metafiction about telling stories we don't own' New York Times
'Meticulously researched and beautifully imagined ... deeply affecting' Tash Aw, author of The South
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
HarperCollins Publishers
Dimensions
Height: 219 mm
Width: 146 mm
Thickness: 34 mm
Weight
424 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-00-870639-5 (9780008706395)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Person
Cecile Pin is a London-based writer. Her debut novel Wandering Souls was longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction, the Prix Femina Etranger, and shortlisted for the Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize. She has won the Fragonard Prize for Foreign Literature, a Somerset Maugham Award, and a London Writers' Award. In 2025, she was selected as one of Forbes' 30 Under 30 Europe.