**LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2024**A story of love and astronomy told over the course of twenty years through the lives of two improbable best friends – from the No. 1 bestselling author of The Essex Serpent.‘Gorgeous…ethereal’ GUARDIAN‘Truth, beauty and love…extraordinary’ OBSERVER‘A book with cosmic reach’ FINANCIAL TIMES‘You’ll get lost in the pages’ ELLEThomas Hart and Grace Macaulay have lived all their lives in the small Essex town of Aldleigh. Though separated in age by three decades, the pair are kindred spirits – torn between their religion and their desire to explore the world. But their friendship is ruptured by the arrival of love.Over the course of twenty years, Thomas and Grace will find their lives brought back into orbit as a devastating story of passion and scientific adventure unfolds and Aldleigh’s unique mysteries are revealed.‘The heavens, comets, faith, ghosts, love… This is a book of deep pleasures’BOOKER JUDGES, 2024‘Sarah Perry just gets better and better’INDEPENDENT‘A romance worthy of Emily Brontë’WALL STREET JOURNAL‘One of contemporary fiction’s brightest stars’GLAMOUR