Celestial Lights Cecile Pin 9780008706395

'Exquisite and deeply felt' VOGUE

'Beautifully rendered' GRAZIA

'Magnificent ... melds sharp insight with great heart' NICOLA DINAN

'Thoughtful and beautifully compelling' ALICE WINN

A beautiful, heartbreaking novel about ambition, love and space from the award-winning author of the Women's Prize longlisted Wandering Souls.

28 January, 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 uncharted 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 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.

'Truly lovely ... the scope of an epic' JO HAMYA, author of The Hypocrite

'A wonderful and singular reading experience' JENNY MUSTARD, author of What A Time To Be Alive

'Incredible ... stayed with me long after the page' RED MAGAZINE

'Atmospheric, original, and beautiful' ELA LEE, author of Minbak

'Masterful ... I was totally absorbed from start to finish' JYOTI PATEL, author of The Things That We Lost

'A moving story that stays with you' ROMALYN ANTE, author of Agimat

'Stunning, exhilarating and unforgettable' ELIANA RAMAGE, author of To the Moon and Back

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.

Praise for Celestial Lights:

'Exquisite and deeply felt ... finding powerful new ways to examine the sacrifices we all have to make in order to pursue our passions' Vogue

'Ambition, love and life's big questions collide in one beautifully rendered tale' Grazia

'Incredible ... stayed with me long after the page' Red Magazine

'Thought-provoking and moving - a must read' Prima Magazine

'A thoughtful and beautifully compelling exploration of human ambition' Alice Winn, author of In Memoriam

'A masterful meditation on ambition and the vanity of legacy' Nicola Dinan, author of Disappoint Me

'Truly lovely ... the scope of an epic, but subtly rendered' Jo Hamya, author of The Hypocrite

'A wonderful and singular reading experience' Jenny Mustard, author of What A Time To Be Alive

'Cecile Pin draws you in with cinematic language and emotional depth. A moving story that stays with you' Romalyn Ante, author of Agimat

'Incredibly beautiful and emotive ... 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

'Atmospheric, original, and beautiful ... Pin writes with compassion and tenderness about the depths of the human soul, that has you captivated long after the last page' Ela Lee, author of Minbak

'A masterful study of ambition, loyalty and love. I was totally absorbed from start to finish' Jyoti Patel, author of The Things That We Lost

'An exquisitely human story ... Cecile Pin is an enormous talent' Eliana Ramage, author of To the Moon and Back

'An absorbing human take on exploration and alienation. Pin's book about space poses as many questions for our world and how we live on it as it does for the galaxy' Sarvat Hasin, author of Strange Girls