A Baptist church in Essex is the meeting place for young Grace , brought up in a strict Baptist family and Thomas a grown man trying to reconcile his faith with his sexuality. There is a supernatural element to do with a "haunted house" and the "ghost" of a female astronomer from the past.

There fates intertwine and are linked to the idea of a comet, space and destiny/fate . There is also love in many forms from repressed , controlling to unconditional and both the lead characters have to balance love and belief in their own ways.

The pace of the book was slow at times but maybe because the style was thoughtful and reflective. The style is also "rich" and dense, rather like a piece of fruitcake which takes time to digest
I loved the bitchy, hypocritical character of Lorna, who projects all her own inadequacies upon other people. This was like the cherry in said fruitcake!

Sarah Perry is obviously a writer of great quality, but personally I preferred The Essex Serpent as Enlightenment seemed to lack momentum in its pacing at times, although a very "literary" book

It's an ok, easy to follow read. Enjoyable in parts and slightly off in others for me personally, Sarah Perry is a new author to me.

Enlightenment is a layered mix of religion and faith, comets and astronomy, ghosts, history, love, art and taking or missing opportunities to find happiness. I really liked the character of Thomas Hart, who becomes obsessed with the Hale-Bopp comet in 1997 and goes on a journey to discover what happened to the 19th century astronomer Maria Veduva whose ghost is rumoured to haunt the local manor house. His story was the most interesting to me as he grapples with his Baptist faith and his sexuality when James Bower is drawn into Thomas' orbit.

I didn't really take to the character of Grace Macaulay and it felt to me that Perry didn't spend as much time on developing her as she did with Thomas.

Overall, it was a good story but I did find it dragged a bit from the middle of Part 2 to the first half of Part 3. The sense of being in a small Essex village came through strongly and the research on the cosmos and science/astronomy was done well. I think the narrative just tried to fit in too many things and as a result it would have been a better book for me with more focus on Thomas and perhaps a first-person narrative from the ghost/astronomer, Maria. Nice little nod to The Essex Serpent tucked away in the final third, though!

This is a fascinating book. Sarah Perry writes beautifully, often lyrically, and has managed to evoke place and characters in a way that allows an apparently unexceptionable story about the uncovering of the past to become gripping. I was especially struck by the way that the story is framed by descriptions of buildings - Lowlands, the big house, and Bethesda, the chapel - and visual and aural details which echo through the story - descriptions of clothing, the sound of trains, the sound of seed pearls dropping on the floor.

While firmly rooted in the 21st century, the characters seem to be drawn from an earlier time which makes the book read like a historical novel. This unusual aspect allows the story to grapple with big themes: the importance of history and questions about how we should understand it through a modern lens; the different forms of love, the problem of communicating deep emotions and their link to physical infirmity,; differing attitudes to religious belief and its relationship to modern science.

The relationships among the four main characters - Thomas, a journalist; Grace, who he has loved since she was a motherless baby; James, a museum curator who Thomas also comes to love; and Nathan, Grace's boyfriend - play out against a historical detective story as Thomas seeks to uncover the astronomical work of Maria, a Romanian who lived at Lowlands in the late 19th century. As he becomes drawn into the quest she appears to him in ghostly form, becoming a fifth vivid character in her own right.

There is a great deal of astronomy in the book which I found interesting - and necessary to the story - but a little overwhelming in its detail. But this is a fine book and its people and places linger in the reader's memory.


Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC.

A dreamy, well-written novel that didn't quite come together for me. As a fan of The Essex Serpent and Melmoth I was looking forward to this one, but despite the beautiful prose and the well done characters something was missing. The main character, Thomas, is very compelling and the side storyline of the female astronomer was very interesting and might have benefited from being more deeply explored, but it felt like the book tried to go in too many directions at once.

Sometimes you have to accept that an author is not for you. I tried the Essex Serpent several times but never managed to get very far with it. I didn’t like the writing style and even the font annoyed me.

I thought I would try again with Enlightenment as so many people praise her writing. I tried, I really did but I did not find enlightenment as to why so many people enjoy her writing. Not for me, but I suspect I am the one losing out here.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC

I really wanted to like this as I loved The Essex Serpent. But sadly this book just did not work for me. I couldn’t get to grips with the sense of time and place, the slow moving plot or the characters. I’m sure it’s a good book, Sarah Perry writes beautifully, but I couldn’t find my way into this story. I think sometimes a book just doesn’t work for one person, but others find it a great read, as we don’t all appreciate the same things. With thanks to the publishers and NetGalley for an ARC

Sarah Perry returns to the locale of her hit novel (and TV series) The Essex Serpent to deliver another deep, dazzling book. Enlightenment takes place over three time periods and concerns itself with a historical mystery and so that it becomes, like the comets that come into the narrative, an elliptical tale. While linear on the surface there are echoes and resonances through the text and a musings on the nature of time itself.
Enlightenment opens in 1997 and centres on the character of Thomas Hart “a man of Essex, for his sins”. Fifty-year-old Hart lives in the town of Aldleigh, works for the local newspaper and is connected to a fundamentalist Baptist church in town. Hart is gay but he keeps that part of his persona separate, allowing it to emerge on his trips up to London. Through the newspaper, Hart becomes interested in astronomy and then a mystery and possible ghost associated from an old manor called Lowlands House. And through this he makes a connection with the local librarian James Bower. The story also revolves around Grace Macaulay, seventeen when the book opens who was the reason that Hart stayed at all, determined to help care for the child whose mother died in childbirth.
Enlightenment is written in a fairly old-fashioned style and so takes some time to get going. But once Perry has the pieces in place, it becomes entrancing. A heady mix of ideas, mystery (and discovery) and character. Hart moves from the mysteries of the night sky to the mysteries of physics, while not being able to see his impact on the people around him. He stumbles through his relationship with Grace, trying to protect her while also struggling with his own relationships. And all the while the mystery of the woman from Lowlands House slowly unravels through letters and chance discoveries.
Perry draws on her own childhood and her family involvement in a local fundamentalist church in the construction of Enlightenment. But this just adds a richness to the narrative rather than a feeling that Perry herself is trying to find some form of personal catharsis.
Enlightenment is the full package – thematically rich, peopled by rounded and fascinating characters with deep inner lives, engaged in a centuries old mystery set in a well realised milieu.

I heard good things about this book, so thought I’d give it a go. I did find it quite difficult to get into at the start. The narrative is beautifully written, but the plot is quite deep and the characters strange. Set in the fictional town of Aldleigh in Essex the story follows 17 year-old Grace Macaulay and 50 year-old Thomas Hart, both of whom attend the Bethesda Baptist Chapel in the town. Thomas is a journalist for the local newspaper and he’s Grace’s godfather. Told in multiple timelines between 1997 and 2017 our two main characters are confused by their feelings and how they contradict the teachings at their chapel.

Briefly, Thomas has an interesting relationship with Grace, almost a father figure. Both of them are looking for love but not always in the right place. His physical love unrequited Thomas turns to another love that of astronomy and is investigating 19th Century astronomer Maria Văduva Bell who is reputed to haunt a local property.

I can’t say more for fear of spoilers. There is a quite a lot of narrative about astronomy some of which went over my head a bit, I know my partner would have loved this! Quite a slow read but that seems to fit with the story and allows the author to explore issues more deeply. It is a complex plot and a book I needed to concentrate on so not an easy read but a very satisfying one.

In the small town of Aldleigh sits the Bethesda Chapel, home to a non-conformist group of worshippers. Thomas and Grace are both members of the congregation but both are undone by love. Teenage Grace falls in love with one of the town boys and questions her faith. Thomas is gay and lives a secret life in London but falls heavily for a married curator whom he meets as he investigates the life of Maria Vaduca. Maria's ghost haunts both as they strive to prove her worth as an amateur astronomer.
There is always a strong theme of the supernatural in Perry's writings and here is no different but it is less overt and more of a background influence. The story is not about haunting but about discovery and regret, it is slow but beautifully written and the prose draws the reader in until they become completely invested in the lives of this small community, a wonderful read.

"Enlightenment" by Sarah Perry was one I picked up with quite a bit of curiosity thanks to the hype around "The Essex Serpent." Perry's writing is lovely and has a distinct flair to it, though the story itself occasionally had me lost. It explores some deep themes about personal connections, beliefs, and the wider universe, which can get you thinking.

Set in the quaint, imagined corridors of Aldleigh, we meet Thomas and Grace, two characters linked by a strict church and both trying to figure out their own paths. The narrative spans a good chunk of time, and I have to admit, I was hoping for more on the mysterious astronomer that the book sometimes references. But the main story really revolves around Thomas and James and their journey into her history.

Perry’s depiction of religion and science as companions rather than foes is refreshing, presenting them as shades of human experience rather than stark contrasts. "Enlightenment" is a tapestry of human emotions and beliefs, a quiet musing on life's grandeur, and the subtle, unfathomable connections that bind us to each other and the world around us

Grateful for Netgaley for the arc

Enlightenment is a delightful read set in a small town Aldleigh in Essex with the local journalist of the Essex chronicle - Thomas Hart meandering through life. He is a member of a local church – the Bethesda Baptist chapel and it is there he meets Ronald Macauley who is the sole parent to his newborn daughter Grace. As the years go by, the tale revolves around Grace’s and Thoams’s relationship and their love interests as well as with the nineteenth-century female astronomer Maria Veduva. Thomas is on a mission to learn about Maria and the events leading up to her disappearance in the 1880s. The book spans several decades with comets being centre of their universe with the mundanity of life pushing through.
The peripheral characters like Nathan and Richard are strong and become more pronounced as they appear and re-appear throughout the story. A beautifully written book with wonderfully engaging lost souls but with glimpses of love and celestial enlightenment with the true star shining in the sky.

A beautiful love story to the skies. Full of love, of stars, of comets and the mystery of the skies above us.
Thomas’s story is a fascinating one - his found love of the moon and the skies opens up a new world for him, Grace, Nathan and others in the town around him. His strange and wordy articles for the newspaper define him exactly and I could imagine him walking the streets with his neck and eyes trained on the night sky.
Grace was a wonderful character - guileless and naive she was a brilliantly open book who was so easy to love - her passion and fire maintained even through such hard times. I loved the complicated relationship she and Thomas had.
Sarah Perry’s writing is beautiful and lyrical and this story flows like the moon’s reflection on water.

I don't think Sarah Perry and I are a good match. I find the ideas and themes behind her books interesting, her characters original and her prose beautiful. But I always feel like I'm wading through mud reading her writing, grasping pieces of storyline, fascinating details, beautiful sentences, but ultimately struggling to piece it altogether and end up feeling like I am missing something. I really wanted to like this book, but just found it disjointed and confusing. It's a shame, because I enjoyed spending time with the characters, but I couldn't gel with the flow and ended up DNFing this at 36%.
This honest review is given with thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this book.

A multi layered novel that is beautifully written and tackles religion head on, the story develops its main characters over 3 periods each roughly 10 years apart and what makes them return to their religious community

What a strange beguiling novel. Sarah Perry creates a fictional world of romanticism, science (astronomy), religion, and the gothic. It's a bit destabilising at first but once you let the prose and the characters envelop you, the reading becomes that much more rich. You grow to want every little detail of Thomas, Maria and Grace's lives.

At its core, I think the novel is about how we connect/don't connect to each other. How do we connect to human beings when we have religion and religious figure watching over us? Can the natural world give us something to connect to? IS astronomy a way to see patterns in our own lives? Why do we connect to someone when he may hurt or never fulfil us (Thomas's dilemma)?

If there's a minor criticism, it's that the beginning can be a tad difficult to get past. It's a bit dense, but once you settle in, the rest of the layered narrative (found letters, unsent letters, newspaper articles, separate timelines, dual narratives, etc.) washes over you and you feel as if you're reading a modern-day Victorian style novel. I will also say that I am not an expert on astronomy or religion, but that didn't hinder my enjoyment of the book. Perry creates a world

The Essex Serpent is one of my all time favourite books so I was delighted to read Sarah Perry's new novel. I loved the unoque characters and their friendship. I also loved all the historical factoids and astronomy. The whole book was a delight!

The premise of this book and having heard wonderful reports on this author's previous work meant I really looked forward to reading 'Enlightenment'. However, it was a mixed experience. I found the writing beautiful and reread some descriptions, but in a book of this length, it became cloying after a time. I loved the theme of astronomy, but again, I felt it was overdone in general.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC

Perry’s writing has a tendency towards swooninenss, which is a your-mileage-may-vary quality. In this book I think it works rather well. It’s about two people in a Strict Baptist congregation in a small Essex town, Aldleigh: when the novel opens, in 1997, Thomas Hart is a middle-aged, closeted homosexual, and Grace Macaulay is a motherless, crosspatch eighteen-year-old. Their relationship—almost paternal-filial, almost a friendship, not quite either—is forever altered by the advent of love for both of them: in Thomas’s case, a straight, married local museum curator named James Bower, and in Grace’s, a slightly feckless non-Baptist teenager named Nathan. All four are drawn into the investigation of a mysterious woman named Maria Vaduva, who lived at local estate Lowlands Park in the 1880s. Twice skipping a decade forward in time, Enlightenment traces the fallout when people discover that the community they want to be a part of is too small to contain them. It’s very luscious writing, maybe relentlessly so, but it draws you in, and Perry is good at making you feel that the stakes are high because the characters feel that.

I really wanted to enjoy this book based on the description, but I found it extremely confusing and hard to decipher. Unfortunately this was a DNF for me.