The Comet Seekers

Starred review from August 29, 2016
Former research physicist Sedgwick mines the mysteries of the solar system and human desire to craft a haunting and wonderfully ethereal debut novel about first loves, inescapable loss, and the search for one’s place in a complicated world. When Róisín, an Irish scientist studying comets, and François, a French chef, reunite at a research base in the frigid wilds of Antarctica in 2017, the two seem virtually broken because of their respective pasts. Róisín, who followed her intergalactic studies from Ireland and France to Hawaii and New York over the course of decades, spent just as many years trying to make sense of and move beyond an illicit relationship with her cousin Liam. François arrived at the base with his own baggage: Severine, his dying mother, had insisted throughout her life that the ghosts of her ancestors are real. Sedgwick tackles a centuries-spanning interconnected narrative by placing each chapter within the context of a comet’s appearance in the sky. The sections that chronicle Severine’s conversations with her dearly departed are marked by their magical realism, but those that explore Róisín and Liam’s star-crossed romance are the standouts, both quietly moving and delicately portrayed. Uniquely structured and stylistically fascinating, the multilayered story comes full circle in a denouement that is both heartbreaking and satisfying.

Narrator Billie Fulford-Brown's light, musical voice carries listeners through this story of love, obligations, and dreams. In Segwick's debut, the narrative jumps around in time and between stories, but listeners never feel lost. In one part, Irish astrophysicist R�is�n runs towards and away from her small-town childhood and intense attachment to her cousin, Liam. In another part, Chef Fran�ois has wanderlust while still remaining close to his mother, Severine, a woman who can communicate with ghosts. Fulford-Brown's expressive voice conveys a plethora of emotions in pitch-perfect French, Irish, and English accents. Although this is a fantastical tale with love and ghosts, there's also science and rational thought. Fulford-Brown gives them all equal weight. G.D. Winner of AudioFIle Earphones Award � AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine

August 1, 2016

A literary editor and former physicist, British writer and debut novelist Sedgwick weaves science and the imagination into a melancholy yet magical tale of long-departed souls who won't rest until they can impose their will upon their living relations. In a narrative spanning centuries and continents, from France to Ireland to Antarctica, the spirits materialize with the appearance of historic comets. Protagonist Roisin has always been captivated by the night sky; as a kid in Ireland, she and younger cousin Liam would lie in the fields each night while she taught him about the constellations, hoping to glimpse a comet. Years later they become lovers, but Liam knows he cannot hold on to the peripatetic Roisin, now an astronomer who longs to see the world. In Bayeux, France, a young chef, Francois, is also afflicted with wanderlust. But can he leave his mother while she's hearing voices and showing signs of dementia? When Francois and Roisin finally meet at a scientific outpost in Antarctica, is it fate that causes them inexplicably to recognize each other or the machinations of the ancestors trying to right wrongs from centuries past? VERDICT Readers would do well to suspend disbelief and open their hearts to the romance, the lush prose, and the mystery of Sedgwick's original and inventive debut. [See Prepub Alert, 4/3/16.]--Sally Bissell, formerly with Lee Cty. Lib. Syst., Fort Myers, FL

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 1, 2016

Irish astronomer Roisin comes to Antarctica to watch for a disintegrating comet, worldwide travel being something she embraces. Base-camp chef Francois has just left Bayeux, France, for the second time in his life. Both are ducking tragedy, and they launch a passionate affair, unaware that their bond magically goes back centuries. Sedgwick has won a Scottish Book Trust New Writers Award; with a 50,000-copy first printing.

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Haunted characters struggle to find fulfillment.In her ambitious but flawed debut novel, journalist, editor, and former research physicist Sedgwick leaps through time, from 1066 to the present, following the trajectories of her characters' lives as various comets surge gloriously through the night skies. She focuses on four main characters: cousins Roisin and Liam are star-crossed lovers both because of their consanguinity and their unbridgeable differences. Roisin, an astronomer, wants to travel the world researching the cosmos; Liam is committed to staying on his family's farm. The second pair is a mother and son, Severine and Francois. Even as a child, Francois longed to explore far-off places, from South American jungles to Antarctica's "wild emptiness"; but Severine will not leave their native Bayeux, France, because she is surrounded there by 11 ghosts from her family's long past. These ghosts are the novel's liveliest characters: playful, teasing, and so comforting that Severine cannot live without them; they are more crucial to her than Francois. "Why should she have to choose," she asks herself, "between her ghosts and her son?" Among the ghosts, Severine is especially attached to her grandmother, "who everyone thought was crazy, who made the world come alive, whose smile made Severine feel special, and loved." Because Granny's ghost treats her like a child, Severine seems infantilized--or, maybe, crazy. Francois can hardly make sense of his strange mother. Rather than allowing her characters to evolve, Sedgwick belabors their predicaments in chapter after chapter. The image of shooting stars suggests a theme: as Roisin explains, "All those stars we see...they're dead already. They have exploded, rejected everything that they were, and the raw components, the elements they were made of, that is where life comes from." But this idea of transformation is only barely hinted at, and, except for Severine, the characters persist in sadness.Unlike shooting stars, Sedgwick's yearning protagonists seem unable or unwilling to "shower the world with light." COPYRIGHT(1) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

August 1, 2016
Haunted characters struggle to find fulfillment.In her ambitious but flawed debut novel, journalist, editor, and former research physicist Sedgwick leaps through time, from 1066 to the present, following the trajectories of her characters lives as various comets surge gloriously through the night skies. She focuses on four main characters: cousins Risn and Liam are star-crossed lovers both because of their consanguinity and their unbridgeable differences. Risn, an astronomer, wants to travel the world researching the cosmos; Liam is committed to staying on his familys farm. The second pair is a mother and son, Severine and Franois. Even as a child, Franois longed to explore far-off places, from South American jungles to Antarcticas wild emptiness; but Severine will not leave their native Bayeux, France, because she is surrounded there by 11 ghosts from her familys long past. These ghosts are the novels liveliest characters: playful, teasing, and so comforting that Severine cannot live without them; they are more crucial to her than Franois. Why should she have to choose, she asks herself, between her ghosts and her son? Among the ghosts, Severine is especially attached to her grandmother, who everyone thought was crazy, who made the world come alive, whose smile made Severine feel special, and loved. Because Grannys ghost treats her like a child, Severine seems infantilizedor, maybe, crazy. Franois can hardly make sense of his strange mother. Rather than allowing her characters to evolve, Sedgwick belabors their predicaments in chapter after chapter. The image of shooting stars suggests a theme: as Risn explains, All those stars we see...theyre dead already. They have exploded, rejected everything that they were, and the raw components, the elements they were made of, that is where life comes from. But this idea of transformation is only barely hinted at, and, except for Severine, the characters persist in sadness.Unlike shooting stars, Sedgwicks yearning protagonists seem unable or unwilling to shower the world with light.

COPYRIGHT(2016) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

August 1, 2016
When astronomers Francois and Roisin meet in Antarctica to observe a comet, it feels like they've been connected for decades, both having overcome much to explore the skies. Roisin, we learn, became an astronomer at the cost of losing her first and most intense love, her cousin Liam; meanwhile, Francois is attempting to put his own family history behind him by traveling to Antarcticaonly the second time he has left his home in France. Moving backward and forward in time, we follow the separate paths of the two characters, visiting them at the times the comets to which they are both drawn are visible. The universe in all its wonders, Sedgwick suggests, draws these two together just when they need it the most. Readers will be enveloped in the magical world that Sedgwick creates and will grapple with the big issues she tackleslove, family, freedom, and loneliness. Those who are drawn to intimate stories of family drama are sure to respond to this beautiful, character-driven novel, which is reminiscent of the work of Amy Bloom and Elizabeth Strout.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)