Enlightenment

Enlightenment is a complete masterwork — ambitious, crafted, truly artful. With its intersections of faith, physics, love and wisdom, I imagine we will be quoting lines from the novel for years to come. It holds page after page of luminous prose, playful intelligence, storyteller’s wit and companionship, and the rarest compassion. Like the comets within, the reader travels headlong through the book’s darkness and beauty, alongside universal laws and mysteries, aligning with both human matter and spirit. Sarah Perry is an extraordinary maker, of unique mind, sensibility and gifts; her writing is, as ever, lit by sheer brilliance

Sarah Hall, author of The Electric Michelangelo

A book in which everything is kindled into light by Sarah Perry’s rapt, luminous attention: friendship, betrayal, faith, astronomy, the drizzle on the streets of Essex and the heavens above them

Francis Spufford, author of Golden Hill

A book about grace, written with a faith in awe and in elemental love, Enlightenment is full of both ordinary and extraordinary wonders. Sarah Perry has brought all her wide empathy and joy to this novel: its characters are rich and vivid and tenderly human. Enlightenment is not only a book that seems to redeem its world, but to redeem its readers. It is a gift

Seán Hewitt, author of All Down Darkness Wide

Once again Sarah Perry has gifted us with an ambitious story impeccably imagined in poignant prose; a beautifully nuanced novel of love in all its aspects, artfully marrying faith and science into something truly beguiling

Susan Stokes-Chapman, author of Pandora

It’s glorious, doing what her books do best: intertwining a love story with reams of esoteric learning and big ideas… This is a beautiful, memorable novel

Observer, *Books to Look Out For 2024*

Gorgeous, galvanic, omniscient, intimate and eminently giving, Enlightenment is a novel to live with and learn by. As I read it, I felt housed by it. And, damn, did the house have skylights. Sarah Perry is a national treasure, and this is her best book yet

Caoilinn Hughes, author of Orchid and the Wasp

Attuned to the fragile intimacies between lovers and friends, and acutely aware of the devastating cruelties that are routinely meted out between strangers, Enlightenment is a mesmerizing work of wondering and wonder. Filled with quiet epiphanies into the intricacies of the human condition filtered through the lens of science and religion, this is a profound and moving novel that invites the reader to regard the world around them with a more compassionate gaze

Mary Jean Chan, author of Flèche

Perry seamlessly blends an absorbing mystery with her principal characters’ personal conflicts to create a narrative as propulsive as it is emotionally resonant. Swiftly sketched but fully realized secondary characters give the novel a social texture more commonly found in Victorian literature, an impression bolstered by Perry’s intricately layered prose. Much of the story is sad, but a radiant finale suggests reconciliation and renewal. Thoughtful, sensitive and beautifully written

Kirkus, *Starred Review*

Perry’s enchanting latest blends a ghost story with a meditation on astronomy and loneliness anchored on the periodic reappearances of Halley’s Comet. Perry’s affection for her characters, even in their most flawed moments, adds to the fullness of their realization, as she makes it abundantly clear that the faults and frailties that distinguish them lie not in the stars but in themselves. Perry magnificently evokes the wonder of the cosmos

Publishers Weekly, *Starred Review*

Perry's stunning, multilayered novel returns to the Essex countryside. Her shimmering prose draws readers gradually into the story, until suddenly, we are captivated by the rich, psychologically complex, and intimate characters as they grapple philosophically with issues of faith, religion, science, astronomy, and love in all its guises. With brilliant storytelling, Perry’s novel of dichotomies portrays how elliptical our lives are - very much like the movement of the stars

Booklist

A genre-bending novel of ideas, ghosts and hidden histories... A heartfelt paean to the consolations of the sublime, where religion and science meet

Telegraph

Sarah Perry just gets better and better… A fat, satisfying, grown-up novel – rich in plot, characters, ideas, structure, and atmosphere… It hangs together as a resplendent whole, shining like a night sky

Independent

Gauzy and unhurried, a genteel novel of inner space. It’s luxuriously – defiantly – old-fashioned... Perry has always produced gorgeous prose, and she has found a new, ethereal register in this book

Guardian

No novel is ever perfect, but this one comes close. Read it, then read it again. This is a book full of unexpected wonders

John Burnside, author A Lie About My Father

A rich, surprising book that dazzles and dizzies the reader. It balances reason with belief, excels in both ideas and action, and, though firmly placed in Perry’s homeland of Essex, it’s a book with cosmic reach

Financial Times

Extraordinary and ambitious... What Perry has done in this layered, intelligent and moving book is to construct a kind of quantum novel, one that asks us to question conventional linear narratives and recognise instead what is ever-present in Perry’s luminous vision of Essex: truth, beauty and love

Observer

Perry has returned with another cracker. A dazzling novel, full of big ideas about religion and science, love and friendship

i

Tender, ruminative, philosophical

Times Literary Supplement

Dazzling… Faith and science can inspire out-of-time cosmic wonder, but as Perry beautifully demonstrates here, so, too, can the novel

Daily Mail

Gorgeously written… A beautiful, compassionate and memorable book, one that will repay reading more than once

New Scientist

Perry has some superb set-pieces throughout the novel, almost in sync with the periodicity of the celestial bodies… A genuine talent… An immaculate book

Scotsman

Perry’s prose oozes with the richness of its Essex setting

Mail on Sunday

With its lush prose and thought-provoking themes, Enlightenment reaffirms Perry's place as one of contemporary fiction's brightest stars

Glamour

With luminous prose and rich characters, you’ll get lost in the pages

ELLE

A wonderfully rich whirl of characters, plot, language and ideas… Told in Sarah’s lucid yet luminous style the story seems to glow from the page

Norfolk Magazine

An ambitious, poetic exploration of cosmic forces, love and faith. Defiantly old-fashioned, touched by the shades of AS Byatt and Wilkie Collins

Financial Times, *Summer Reads of 2024*

A remarkable new novel… jam-packed with big ideas, exquisitely written, and characterized by a dark narrative drive… It’s as good a novel as you’ll read this year

Church Times

Perry’s juicy fourth novel seems to me pretty much the perfect summer read: strange, wondrous and, crucially, a book that refuses to be gobbled up in one sitting… Pretty much every unhurried sentence is a delight

Daily Mail, *Summer Reads of 2024*

This celestial-minded novel…is quintessential Perry. A richly layered epic

Daily Telegraph, *Summer Reads of 2024*

The author of The Essex Serpent just gets better and better: here is one of those rich, textured novels with a story to really sink into

iNews, *Summer Reads of 2024*

Soul-satisfyingly substantial subjects are handled in gorgeously shaped sentences

Radio Times

Sarah Perry…creates worlds to disappear into, combining complex ideas and richly layered stories with beautiful, vivid prose. Her latest book is possibly her most ambitious yet

BBC

As rich and satisfying as any plum pudding

Daily Mail, *Books of the Year*

In Enlightenment [Perry] tracks patterns of unrequited love and cosmic wonder against the path of the Hale-Bopp comet, all done with her customary grace and lashings of atmosphere

Guardian, *Books of the Year*

[A] genre-bending novel of ideas, ghosts and hidden histories. A richly layered epic… a heartfelt paean to the consolations of the sublime, where religion and science meet

Sunday Telegraph