Celestial Lights
A Novel
by Cecile Pin
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Pub Date Mar 24 2026 | Archive Date Apr 24 2026
Henry Holt & Company | Henry Holt and Co.
Description
A beautiful, heartbreaking novel about ambition, love, and space from the award-winning author of Wandering Souls
January 28, 1986: Soon after launch, the Challenger shuttle falls out of the sky and into the sea. At the same time, Oliver Ines is born. Celestial Lights is his story.
Ollie spends his childhood in an English village where his bedroom is 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 taps him to lead a landmark mission to the distant moon Europa, Ollie makes a choice that will send his whole world spinning.
As the mission advances deeper into unchartered territory, Ollie finds himself retreating into the past: his university days in London 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?
A portrait of a complicated man and a breathtaking tale of memory, personal choices, and the relationships that define us, Celestial Lights is an unforgettable story that questions what we owe ourselves and our loved ones when our ambitions and loyalties collide.
Advance Praise
“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
Available Editions
| EDITION | Other Format |
| ISBN | 9781250863492 |
| PRICE | $26.99 (USD) |
| PAGES | 240 |
Available on NetGalley
Average rating from 7 members
Featured Reviews
Celestial Lights was fabulous--one of my favorite recent reads. Cecile Pin's story of Oliver Ines, commander of the ship that goes to Jupiter's Moon Europa, is a thing of beauty, weaving together a past narrative of Oliver's coming of age seamlessly with the present as he tries to couple a stellar professional life with a rockier personal one. And at under 300 pages, Pin's prose is so clear and concise, yet it has the emotional impact as great as the universe she's writing about--this is a deeply human story. The science is solid too, at least to my complete layman's view. It's believable and realistic and Pin does a fabulous job portraying the initial excitement and eventual desolation of her momentous space journey.
Oliver and Philly are wonderful characters, and the secondary cast is well fleshed out as well. Once I started this story I just couldn't put it down. This is definitely one I'll be recommending to everyone.
A special thanks to Holt for granting me the opportunity to read a copy of this book for review through NetGalley.