Julia Glazer moved from a small town in upstate New York and now cleans offices and homes in New York City to maintain a solitary life. As she finishes work on one hot summer evening she joins a small crowd to watch the Perseid meteors where she meets psychiatrist John Benton. Slowly over time a relationship develops but begins to fall apart when Julia learns that John is involved in research about persons with UFO experiences. This upsets and angers Julia because of her childhood with her crazy mother's alien experiences. Slowly Julia's faces secrets of her past and images in her present.

I don't believe I have ever read anything like this book, and it doesn't make it easy to describe it.I thought it was going to be a standard Sci - Fi book and this is a genre I have started fairly recently to read and mostly enjoy.this however was so different to the other books in this genre I have read.,t was very character driven and although it was fairly slow paced it wasn't boring, it showed brilliant imagination and descriptions, it makes me wonder where some authors get their ideas from, it must be wonderful to have all that going in your head and be able to translate it to paper.I liked the main characters and the story and I think if you are looking for something quite different, and well written pull up a seat you've found it.Thank you to the publishers and netgalley for an ARC in return for an honest review.

I received an Advanced Reader Copy of The Stargazer’s Embassy by Eleanor Lerman from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

The Stargazer’s Embassy is unlike any alien novel written before. Thought provoking and addictive, this is a must read and should be on everyone’s e-reader and book shelf. Judging by the title, what appears to be a quirky cosmic sci-fi novel is actually a rich metaphysical novel that ponders some important existential questions. What really happens after death? What are aliens’ intentions? Can we ever truly escape our past?

The story follows a woman named Julia who finds herself part of an alien conspiracy and wants no part of it. She’s a house-cleaner who is trying to move on from her new-agey childhood and mommy issues. All she has is a tattoo, and a place called The Stargazer’s Embassy, where people come and go, like life itself. We find her at various points in her life struggling with this issue, and trying to make a life for herself. Along the way we are introduced to some interesting characters who find themselves implicated in the very same alien problems she’s trying to escape from.

Julia’s defiance of involving herself in this haunting issue is what makes this a stand out novel. We don’t see Julia enthusiastically throwing herself into the unknown. We see a truly scared, annoyed, and assertive character who becomes the anti-hero. There is a will she or won’t she anticipation that hooks the reader and offers a certain emotional and psychological realism. There are plenty of alien encounters in the novel to satisfy traditional science fiction lovers, but it takes it a step further by offering a multitude of spiritual questions. It is because of this, that The Stargazer’s Embassy becomes an exploration of the meaning of life.

Suffering from emotional abandonment issues, the aliens become a metaphor for Julia’s strange childhood. In essence, she herself is an alien- trying to create a life for herself that she’s never known. Losing her mother with many unanswered questions, Julia hopes her encounters with the aliens, or “things” as she likes to call them, will provide her with the answers she needs. The aliens themselves are not exactly sure what they’re looking for and this in turn becomes a mirror for Julia and other “experiencers” encounters. If we all had the chance to travel throughout the cosmos like the aliens- would any of our questions be answered, or would we be even more confused? Julia spends most of her life searching for answers, but it is the very place she is running away from that provides her with the comfort she seeks- The Stargazer’s Embassy. The aliens have just as many questions as Julia and her friends do, but appreciating life for the journey it is, is all that counts in the end. Everything has a beginning and an end, so rather than spend lifetimes dissecting what it all means, it is important to treasure every waking moment, because it is those moments that stitch the fabric of our lives. There are two things we must do in our lifetime, be born and die. Everything in between is alien compared to the certainty of those two things.

I appreciated the humour associated with the aliens and their un-friendly demeanors. Once again they did not come across as stereotypical menacing superior beings, but relatable drifters who seemed genuinely lost. The story was perfectly paced and the first person narrative was a great way to keep the reader invested in Julia’s journey.

In essence, each of us have our own Stargazer’s Embassy- a place, either imagined or real where we are able to go to find comfort and peace- knowing that the answers we seek, are in fact seeking us. The Stargazer’s Embassy is a place where people- human and inhuman come and go, like life itself.

*A big thank you to Sarah Miniaci at Smith Publicity Inc. for being kind enough to send me a paperback copy to review. You’re friendly correspondence and enthusiasm for this book has me looking forward to reviewing other Smith Publicity Inc. books!

Literary soft science fiction

I enjoyed this book. Eleanor Lerman is an excellent writer and the book was hard to put down. As literary fiction, it did a great job of portraying the human condition, but as science fiction it is was disappointing. For most of the book, I could not tell if this was a book about alien experiences or psychiatry. But the question comes down to whether I enjoyed the book or not, and I did. I liked the first-person narrative and I thought the ending (no spoilers) was excellent. I recommend this book for readers who like soft science fiction, but fans of hard science fiction may be disappointed.

Another Netgalley approved early copy, another wonderful author and another unique experience for me.
Let me say I don't usually read science fiction books, let alone alien abduction books, but I requested it anyway and I'm happy I did.
First of all, the plot is tightly woven, though its two parts are split in two, separated by a decade. Or, I could say a ten years cool-off period. Each part builts up to its own resolution, it's fast paced and alert. The second part is deeper, I think, trynig to give a meaning to Julia's life, and to all of our lives as we only have one chance, or because Julia matured.
There are two conflicting stories about aliens (the abductees' ordeal and the exeriencers' mysterious encountes), two leading theories (inter-tribal communication or hybrid population) - both proved true, two realities... At least Julia struggles with all her strengh to remain anchored into the palpable one, but it seems that once you know about "things", you can't stop seeing them everywhere. You can either feel terrorized like Alice, or enraged like Julia.
What I liked the most was the fact that Julia chooses to confront her past, the memory of her mother, the "travelers", to make sense of all that had happened to her. Maybe because her loss is almost painless after so much time, or because she is "alien" to human suffering, her conclusion is that death is nothing, people disappear into nothing, we only have this one chance to make it right. But even if we had infinite chances and keep transgressing, like the travelers, we might feel as lost as they feel, not knowing where they come from and where to go. Her lifelong experience with the travelers prepared her for her mission: to make sure that whoever might come next to Stargazer's Embassy she'll be there, no more running.

In 2015, Eleanor Lerman’s career in writing took what some might frame as an abrupt left turn: aliens. Known primarily for her poetry, Lerman had only one novel and two collections of short stories to her name, none of which breached known reality (at least for non-conspiracy thinkers). With The Radiomen, however, Lerman told the story of an everyday woman who as a child had a strange encounter with an alien through her uncle’s shortwave radio, then developed the scene into a story revolving around religion and self-awareness. The premise apparently ripe, in 2017 she returns to novel-length fiction about equivocal extra-terrestrials in the human context with Stargazer’s Embassy (Mayapple Press).

Julia is a single, middle-aged cleaning lady living in New York City who seems content with life. Her mother’s train riding off the track most of the time (she tattooed Julia’s wrist as a child with a strange pattern of stars), her passing leaves Julia with some sense of peace. But things may just be repressed. Meeting an older professor of psychology one evening, Julia starts up an unexpected relationship. And things progress normally, that is, until John reveals that a major portion of his research revolves around experiencers—people who have encountered or been abducted by an alien race dubbed ‘the grays.’ Julia is willing to accept this part of his work, but the tattoo on her wrist won’t. The star pattern something commonly observed by experiencers, Julia is forced to delve into her mother’s past as well as the rabbit’s hole of her own soul.


Stargazer’s Embassy, like The Radiomen, is a novel which presents itself very simply; Lerman’s syntax is straight-forward, no teasing, hinting, or over-statement. But from the beginning it’s quite clear an undercurrent of something unearthly flows beneath the surface narrative. Interestingly, it’s not the aliens which occupy this subterranean flow, rather their meaning and purpose to Julia’s story. Building subtle momentum, I kept asking myself: how is Lerman going to resolve this? How do the grays fit into Julia’s life and the world beyond? At one point I even worried: is it all just eye candy—another trope of sf paraded mysteriously for entertainment only? But my fears were misplaced. Lerman draws the strands of narrative together upon the conclusion into a something that has meaning for the characters, and the reader.

I can’t help but point out that, in the face of much contemporary science fiction which is doing it’s darndest to portray “strong women”, “women with agency”, and “revision how women are portrayed in fiction”, Julia is very traditional (for lack of a better word). Along with her job as home cleaner, she is generally a passive woman who comes to be cook, laundry-woman, cleaner, and lover for a man almost twice her age—not precisely the symbol many contemporary feminists are aiming at. More importantly, however, Julia can be indecisive, imposed upon, dishonest with herself, juggled by fate and choice, and is naturally all the more realistic for it. Never a slave or automaton, however, she retains her autonomy despite that she is not kicking ass or enforcing profound opinion on others. Instead, her autonomy is kept through pondering questions and situations, making good and bad decisions, and dealing with family and personal problems in partially inept and not always optimal fashion—just as we do. In a genre with a very vocal portion intent on portraying ‘powerful women’ or even eliminating gender altogether, Julia comes across as a refreshing character precisely for Lerman not defining her by her role in society, rather the facets which comprise her individual character and the highs and lows it traverses living this thing called life.

In the end, Stargazer’s Embassy is an intriguing story for the manner in which Lerman strings out the suspense surrounding the meaning and purpose of the aliens in the context of Julia’s life. Walking a very taught tightrope between realism and science fiction, the reader is kept guessing, right up until the end, as to the reality of her experiences. A strong, emotional story of a woman trying to come to terms with her past and present in the face of uncertainty, Lerman effects a languid but operative writing style; there are details, but the reader must be patient to learn the entire scene. As such, Stargazer’s Embassy is similar to The Radiomen in terms of premise, style, main character, etc.. Quality is also on that list, making the novel equally as recommended.

Even if aliens are not really your thing, you should absolutely give this book a try. Lerman manages to take a rather nutty plot device - alien visitation - and deliver it with poignancy and, at times, exquisite beauty.

I wanted to like this one SO much - and really thought I would, even though it turned out to be a dramatically different book than I imagined from the cover and description. I liked the beginning - I enjoyed Julia as a character and was intrigued by the tidbits of her backstory that dribbled out, as well as by the bizarre way the "things" appeared and disappeared around her. When she met John, it seemed too impossible for it to be coincidence, and I was very curious to see where things went in their relationship. But as more and more characters got added, I found myself getting less and less interested - both in my original questions/areas of interest and in the new ones that were developing...

Then, just at the end of Part One, a TOTAL curveball came in - and that's when the book really lost me. It should have been an "OH MY GOODNESS!" moment, one that spurred the story on - I'm sure that was the intent, anyway. But it just made me roll my eyes and put the book down... To be fair, the story had been dragging on me for a while before that point, so it wasn't as dramatic as the eye rolling implies. I'd already suspected that I was losing interest and that this was going to wind up being a "not for me" title; the curveball clinched it, it didn't cause it. I tried slogging through the rest, in an attempt to finish it for the review, but I just could not get past the eye roll moment - everything that happened thereafter just irritated me, or reminded me of my irritation, and I couldn't finish it...

For me, this one was (at least in part) a failure of the book to live up to the description. The writing was fine, but the pacing was rather uneven for me - I loved the beginning and felt that it clicked along, then about 20%/so in, it slowed down to glacial speed. I kept picking it up and putting it back down. Things would pick up a tiny bit, but almost as soon as they did, they'd slow up again. It started feeling like work to keep reading; I found myself watching the kindle progress meter the way a teenager watches a clock during the school day... By the time I got to the end of Part One (almost 50%), I couldn't believe I'd been reading for so long and so little (with the exception of the curveball) had happened. There were almost as many questions as there'd been at the beginning - only I was too tired to care about their answers anymore...

Fabulous! Great world building, loving the characters, will be looking for more by this author!

This one wasn't my cup of tea, but it might well be yours--give it a shot! Maybe you'll disagree.

The Stargazer's Embassy by Eleanor Lerman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Thanks to Netgalley for this Arc!

I honestly thought this was going to be a tongue-in-cheek novel based on the cover and even more so because the author is a poet and is pushing this title within literary SF.

What I read was nothing of the sort.

Instead, we get a very grounded and realistic rendition of the alien abduction world from a very strange member within it. She wants nothing to do with any of it. And, oddly enough, she was never abducted, just visited. A lot. There's a mystery here, of course, and Julia is utterly focused on living a perfectly normal life despite her upbringing, submerging herself in distractions and cleaning houses and businesses in the most mindless job she can and endlessly diving into all kinds of music to push the rest of the world away. No close friends or relatives, no desire for anything more... but of course everything changes.

I'm very impressed by this novel more because of its invested realism and honest reactions and the way its skeptical of sensationalism. Instead, we've got a novel that takes everything very seriously and backs it up with deep character development, wonderful details, and genuine outrage, antagonism, and fear.

In the respect that it writes clearly and fascinatingly about a sensational subject while always remaining firmly grounded and thoughtful, this is a literary novel. Only the subject itself is SF, but that's happening all the time, nowadays, as ideas become super-mainstream.

I totally recommend this for everyone in the mood for an extended and deeply explored X-File or that wonderful Spielberg adventure, Taken. This book is all about turning the alien legend on its head and giving the other side a chance to develop as much more than a conspiracy or a joke.

And even more importantly, it was a simple delight to read. :)

It's marketed as a science fiction story and of course it is, but it is much more character driven than most, dealing with themes of alienation and loss as a young woman tries to escape from her past and ignore their impact on her life. For much of the story I was unsure whether the events she described were real or existed onluy in her imagination. This becomes clear in the course of the narrative and things start to move with satisfying urgency to a rather unexpected conclusion. It's not my usual sort of read but I thoroughly enjoyed it.

I absolutely loved this book! What a relief to read a so-called "literary" sci-fi novel that isn't ashamed of being speculative fiction. Lerman resists the hipster temptation so prevalent in literary sci-fi, of keeping an ironic distance. Instead, she dives in and actually takes seriously the question of what it would actually be like to live inside one of the sensational, even lurid, plots that detail encounters with alien beings. And the answer, of course, is that it would be a very difficult life indeed. The style and tone of the book is fairly straightforward psychological realism, and the reason that works is because the realist style ensures that we are not allowed to view Julia's story of lifelong, unwilling engagement with the "things", as she calls them, as a fable or an allegory of modern life or anything as pretentious as that (although it may very well have been the author's intention to make the plot metaphorical in some way). Instead, we are asked to take the plot at face value, to engage however seriously or non-seriously we like with the both profound and intensely fun question of "what would it really be like to be someone, for real, who normally we see just featured in an episode of the X-Files?"
I gave it five stars because it's so unusual, thoughtful and fluidly put together, and it really deserves all the attention it can get - but it's not perfect, of course. The ending felt a bit rushed and pat (after a slightly drawn out middle), and Lerman is a little too fond of certain repeated moments, like the heroine telling herself she's never felt worse than she feels in this very moment. But overall, if you like speculative fiction of all kinds, I urge you to try this book. Hopefully you won't regret it!