Thanks to NetGalley and Random House for the ARC. It took me a little while to get into this book. At first it felt quite disjointed with the multiple points of view, multiple timelines and multiple techniques for moving the story forward, but my goodness, once I got into this story I found it utterly compelling. The writing is beautiful, the characters sympathetically drawn and wonderfully developed, and Perry even manages to make the subject of astronomy interesting (I like looking at the stars but have never felt the need to be able to name them individually :-)) The themes of theology/religion (& It’s impact on society and individuals), homophobia, love gained, lost or yearned for are all woven through the text and move the story along without overwhelming it. Thoroughly recommend it!

At times it is difficult to know what is going on because the changes seem to happen definitely mid-paragraph if not mid-sentence. It took a couple of attempts to get into the story, the story line is very weak and the characters irritating in the extreme but at some point I was hooked and couldn’t stop reading.

I loved this book. As soon as I opened it up, I realised that I had read something by this author before. The author has a strong sense of place. I found earlier chapters difficult to place in time and this gave the book a haunting and ethereal quality which I enjoyed. The later chapters felt more solid and familiar which gave the book an ending and answers to earlier questions that had arisen.

This book has a pulse. It has a rhythm which keeps the reader entranced. The chapters weave in and out of the characters lives, gradually unfolding over time. If I had to create a playlist to accompany this book, it would include everything from Moonlight Sonata to Teenage Kicks to Karma Police.

Not my favourite Sarah Perry but an interesting read. Based around a Bethesda chapel, a young motherless child reaching adulthood within the constraints of the church and with presence of the halle bop comet crossing the sky. Diverse characters mix as we also search for a ghost in the deserted big house on the outskirts of town and uncover a century old story.

Exquisite writing, although I did find it very slow, and at times hard to follow. I loved the concept behind it, and it was very different from other Sarah Perry's titles.

I really liked the sound of this book but unfortunately I did not engage with the plot or the characters. The writing style was beautiful but I did find that the plot and timelines jumped around too much for me to become invested in the story. I gave it a good go, but stopped reading after about 80 pages.
Thank you to NetGalley, the author and the publisher for the opportunity to review this book.

Perry writes about friendship in such an illuminating, heartfelt way that I found myself having to pause to think through what I had just read every few pages. Wonderfully immersive.

I finished Enlightenment a week ago and have spent a lot of that time trying to decide whether to give this 4 or 5 stars. I’ve decided that I really think this is a 4.5 star book so I’m gong to round up to 5 stars.

I was so surprised that I loved this book as much as I did. I liked The Essex Serpent but I definitely did not love it and I didn’t find that enjoyable to read. I liked Malmouth more and I loved Enlightenment. It’s hard to say why however. This book just gives a feeling of a meditation on the stars, history and personal relationships (not necessarily romantic, just life relationships) all with the most beautiful prose. I am not the sort of reader for whom beautiful prose is enough for me to love a book however, I need a story. I need something to keep me interested. And how does Enlightenment do that? I’m not sure. There’s no fast paced story here but there is a thread that joins the characters and 20-30 year time span that is covered here. This novel just felt so real and even though sad at points the overall effect is one I found beautiful. Highly recommended.

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House UK for an advanced reader’s copy in exchange for an honest review.

For those who have read and enjoyed Sarah Perry's previous works, you will know what you are getting here. Exquisite writing, pitch perfect, with beautiful, indelible imagery. I re-read whole passages here just to revel in her prose.

Told over three distinct time periods, with the narrative shifting between them, back and forth, loose and free and expertly done.

Thomas Hart, a writer and journalist, living and working in Aldleigh, Essex. Thomas falls in love with a married man.

Grace Macaulay, twenty years younger, also lives in Aldleigh, where she belongs to the same methodist group as Thomas, and religion binds them together.

Then there is the pursuit of a mystery, with Thomas researching a female astronomer called Maria Vaduva Bell, who lived in Aldleigh in the 1880s.

Together these three people, their lives, histories and loves become the backbone to a novel which explores issues of faith, religion, science, astronomy and more besides.

This is a very fine novel. Thank you to the publishers and Netgalley for the ARC.

Another masterwork from Sarah Perry, Enlightenment tells the story of Grace Macauley, a young woman and Thomas Hart, a closeted gay man 30 years her senior, who both worship at Bethesda, an Essex Baptist Chapel. As with many of Perry's books, the setting itself acts as an additional character and this is never more true than when she writes of Essex. The cast of characters, both alive and dead, undergo love, grief, change and uneasy contentment; orbiting each other and Aldleigh like the comets that shape the book's structure.

I loved the nods to previous work and the lush, timeless writing Perry is known for. Enlightenment deserves every bit of success that The Essex Serpent enjoyed.

From the first page I would’ve known that this was a Sarah Perry novel even if the author’s name had been redacted; like Aldwinter, Aldleigh is somewhere I feel I visited as a child. I preferred the time spent with Maria and Thomas and their various ghosts to the astronomy longeurs but overall adored the book.

I absolutely devoured this new novel by Sarah Perry. Perry’s writing is exquisite and reading her words are an absolute delight. Linking love, astronomy and religion the story is centred around Edward, a gay member of the Bethesda Chapel and Grace, a young woman who is brought up in the faith and is trying to find her identity. Driven by an historical mystery, the relationship of the these two characters is examined over a period is 20 years.

This is a difficult book for me to review.

On the one hand, I appreciated this tale of people grappling with their faith. Our protagonist, Thomas, struggles as a closeted gay man who has found sanctuary in the church, but knows that should folk discover his sexuality then he will be ostracised. Then we have the young woman who he has sworn to protect, who is also unable to contend with all the restrictions imposed upon her by the church, especially when she looks at how the world is changing around her.

Thomas is tasked with writing about space/the constellations for the local newspaper. He also is haunted by the ghost of a nineteenth century woman who lived in a dilapidated house on the outskirts of the town. He also develops an attraction to a local museum curator who shares his excitement about the woman who once inhabited the house. (The novel is then interspersed with letters from this woman, and newspaper articles from Thomas.)

Does this sound like a lot? Because it read like a lot. There was simply too much going on in this novel that meant certain stories weren't given enough time to develop.

I think the author's decision to begin this book in 1997 worked well for the story that they told. There was more homophobia present, gay characters were still often discussed in a derogatory fashion on television, and the world was a lot different from how it is nowadays; especially when we consider how close it was to the AIDS epidemic. However, halfway through the novel we have a time jump. This doesn't last long before we jump again and each time it led to the novel feeling somewhat disjointed. It didn't feel seamless. It felt like a jigsaw of parts hammered together, rather than a complete puzzle.

Indeed, it felt as though the author was moving the book around quickly so as they didn't have to put in the necessary work to show how emotions develop and change gradually. Instead, they just say to their reader, now we're here emotionally, now we're here emotionally, now we're here and deal with it. It lacked fluidity and ruined the pace.

The way in which Thomas's homosexuality is discussed, left me feeling somewhat uncomfortable. To me, it felt as though the reader was being told that the best way a gay person can live their life is if they suppress their feelings and remain celibate and don't succumb. It felt dated, and mildly homophobic and I don't think that this was the intention, but given that there was so much going on in the narrative, there was no room to discuss this. I wonder if the author was trying to write sensitively and in doing so actually said nothing, except to share harmful ideas about gay people being predators.

Honestly, I'm dismayed by this novel. In trying to do a lot, it failed itself magnificently. No character growth, poorly drawn characters in the first place a disjointed pace, woeful ideas about people.

Wonderful

This was both magical and mysterious

Loved the way how the author used time and space, astronomy and our understanding of it to showcase two characters, the mystery in the past and the story at large.

You know it's going to be good from The Essex Serpent author!

I adored The Essex Serpent and Melmoth and this is what I’ve come to expect in subject matter from Sarah Perry. You find these elements in Enlightenment with the characters of Thomas Hart, The Macaulay girls, Nathan, etc., with Thomas’s obsession with the haunting’s in Lowlands Park in Bethesda Chapel and one astronomer Maria Veduva. This could’ve been the whole book for me. I was hooked reading those chapters and loved those characters and the misty rainy nights set the perfect atmosphere in the Essex town of Aldleigh. However, all of the astronomy, celestial references that are quite scientific and in depth with interrupting chapters took me right out of the novel and gave me headaches. I know nothing of astronomy and felt jarred by the subject matter. I found myself looking things up while reading a chapter. If you don’t mind that, I enjoyed the religious elements as well as Sarah Perry’s writing stellar as usual.

Like many booklovers, I've read Sarah Perry's blockbuster novel, 'The Essex Serpent', so I had a good idea of what to expect from her new book, 'Enlightenment'. It doesn't disappoint.

The story (without chapter breaks) is split into three parts, each taking place about a decade apart, starting in 1997. The reason for the spacing becomes evident as we learn about astronomy, and comets in particular - some of which appear during these documented years.

The novel follows a writer and journalist, Thomas Hart, who lives on his own in the fictional Essex town of Aldleigh. At times, it feels as though Perry is channelling her own thoughts about writing through him. Thomas is gay, meets and falls in love with a married man, and - for reasons never fully explained - feels responsible for the novel's other protagonist, Grace Macaulay, whom he first met when she was a baby and he 20 years old. The two of them belong to the same strict and strange Methodist sect, and religion both binds them together and causes their rupture.

Added to all this is the pursuit of a mystery, with Thomas researching a female astronomer called Maria Vaduva Bell, who lived in Aldleigh in the 1880s. She corresponds with a female friend in London, known only by her initials, 'CS'. I won't spoil the surprise, but it soon becomes clear who that person is.

Perry writes well and draws you into the story, explaining astronomy and tying all the threads together very neatly. It's a great read, and enlightening, too.

Haunting, gritty, elegant. Sarah Perry is an immersive writer who weaves a narrative across 3 era's to create a truly mindbending novel and I mean that in the best way

At times I did have to take a breather, purely because the lives of the characters were so well illustrated. Full disclosure, I am not a Christian, but have ful respect for all religions and faiths and I am always fascinated to learn about different faiths in literature. I especially enjoy books which describe the experience of faith and not preach the faith itself

Enlightenment is exactly this and the key message I took from it is the dichotomy of Science and faith through the stories of two friends, Thomas Hart and Grace Macaulay, who have lived all their lives in the small Essex town of Aldleigh. Teh community is small, baptist and close-knit.

Over a series of events, Grace and Thomas find their paths crossing over and over, not least because of Thomas's obsession with an astronomer who disappeared in the 19th century and Graces pursuit of a higher understanding of life

Not only is this a great read, it is also a book to return to, to explore the themes further as well as the analogous nature of the narrative

Thank you very much to Netgalley, Random House Uk, Vintage and the incredible author Sarah Perry for this stunning ARC. My review is left voluntarily and all opinions are my own

A lovely premise yet hard to follow at times. The descriptions of circumstances can be overly vague.

Enlightenment is a fascinating immersion into the lives of the two central characters and the small circle around them (whether knowingly or through discovery of 19th century artefacts). It’s easier to admire rather than to love, perhaps, with a dense appreciation of astronomy, religion and - ultimately- our place in the universe.

Set in three main time periods from 1997 onwards (historical fiction‽), whilst also deeply indebted to the late 1880s in both the dialogue with the astronomer Maria through the centuries and also perhaps in style - this feels like an old gothic novel that just happens to be set in the recent past. Thomas Hart and Grace Macauley are both peculiarly out of time - and their most explicit interaction with the modern world is largely ‘off the page’ and Essex for them feels like it’s running at a different pace.

I’m left reflecting on our place in the stars, the importance of friendship and not leaving things unsaid, the cruelty of religion in the face of difference (especially LGBT) and the hurt of unrequited love. Enlightenment could perhaps be a little tighter, but its sprawling nature is part of its charm.

Elliptical, strange and alluring 4.5 rating, raised

Perry’s writing is rich and textured, and even though this one in set ‘in modern times’ – three timescales, across 20 years, 1997, 2008 and 2017, her language, sentence construction and characters all seem to belong to a time 100 years earlier. And there are many reasons for this. One of the themes here is time itself, and our perception of it. IS time linear, or do ‘times’ coincide and happen together – memory itself plays our past as we experience our present.

The central character in this is a local Essex journalist, Thomas Hart, a courtly, rather old fashioned man, one who could have stepped straight out of a Victorian novel. His writings about the subject matters which interest him – astronomy and the recurrence of comets in particular, whose movement is elliptical – are of a somewhat old fashioned depth and complexity. Hart has been raised in a rather old fashioned Baptist community. Perry herself had a similar background. The community eschew modern culture, particularly television, so the prime cultural influence IS Biblical, and the rich language and imagery from that tradition.

Taking us further into the past is a mystery around a vanished Romanian woman from the 1880’s Maria Veduva, some of whose papers Hart discovers, and spends his life investigating. Veduva herself features as perhaps a kind of ghost, stalking the imagination of several of the central characters. Readers of The Essex Serpent may find a frisson towards the end as the central character of THAT book makes an appearance in this.

Hart, some 16 or 17 years before this story begins, falls in love in an instant with Grace Macaulay. Grace is a tiny baby, daughter of the Baptist chapel’s preacher. Her mother has died. Grace, a teenager when we first meet her, is a peculiar and eccentric girl, old fashioned and direct. The love between Thomas and Grace is in no way sexual. Another major theme is love itself, and its extraordinary guises, how love is found, lost, found and lost, over and again. Including love of, for and from, the Divine.

I didn’t always rationally understand everything within these pages, but this seemed, also, to be of a piece with its astronomical themes – sometimes cloud covers the face of the moon, and indeed the stars, at other times the clouds part, and the heaven’s stars can be clearly seen, before those moments of enlightenment are veiled again