Bright Stars

by Kimberley Tait

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Book 1 of Dogstar Press Original Fiction

Pub Date Sep 8 2026 | Archive Date Oct 31 2026

Dogstar Press

General Fiction (Adult) | Historical Fiction | Literary Fiction

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Description

Cate, Teddy, Ames, and Sloane—newly minted Class of 2001 graduates—are reeling from their first heartbreaks as they enter adult life, unaware that the world is on the brink of vast, irreversible change. When the Twin Towers fall on September 11th, the tragedy intertwines their lives and futures in supernatural ways, linked by an undelivered love letter.

Written to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the September 11th attacks being marked this year, never to be forgotten, Bright Stars is a portrait of the tragedy that dented the romantic imagination of a forgotten generation—The Last of the Innocents—just as offline life disappeared forever.

A captivating story of fate, love, and human connection, this novel is a time machine that will transport you back to the closing days of the lost era the world is now longing for.

“Kimberley Tait has entwined love and loss like the red rose round the briar in her remarkable novel Bright Stars . . . a deeply personal story of generosity and grace.” —Anne Margaret Daniel, editor of I’d Die for Youand Other Lost Stories by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Bright Stars is the inaugural title from Dogstar Press, the independent publisher devoted to beauty, sincerity, and 100% human fiction. A collectible series using a unique, elegant format and timeless design by Claire Mason, designer of Penguin's beloved Little Black Classics, Dogstar honors books as enduring objects in an increasingly ephemeral world. Visit www.dogstar.press or IG: @dogstar.press to learn more about us.

Advance Praise

"Kimberley Tait has entwined love and loss like the red rose round the briar in her remarkable novel Bright Stars. Following four young people from college to the start of their working lives in New York City, and the unholy shock and aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Bright Stars is a deeply personal story of generosity and grace. What does it mean, when we say we care? This novel is about the care we express and receive, and how it composes our humanity."

—Anne Margaret Daniel, editor of I'd Die For You and Other Lost Stories by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

"A meditation on the bittersweet nature of love and the fickleness of fate, Bright Stars at its heart is a ghost story, its young protagonists occupying the shadowy realm of both the haunted and the haunting, struggling to navigate the violent death of one era and the forced birth of another, in the aftermath of 9/11. Tait reminds us that life is underpinned by romance and anointed by art, all that makes us human persisting and insisting, and lighting up the night in the same old timeless way.”

— Elizabeth Kelly, bestselling author of Apologize! Apologize!

"In a wistful nod to the earliest stages of America’s digital age, Tait’s novel opens with an entertaining, socially exact scene that is quietly loaded with what’s coming . . . Tait writes with precision and warmth . . . creating a cast that moves, compels, and echoes the emotional conflicts and atmosphere of an entire generation."

—BookLife Review.