Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    The Comet Seekers: A Novel
    The Comet Seekers: A Novel
    The Comet Seekers: A Novel
    Audiobook9 hours

    The Comet Seekers: A Novel

    Written by Helen Sedgwick

    Narrated by Billie Fulford-Brown

    3.5/5

    ()

    Switch to ebook

    About this audiobook

    A magical, intoxicating debut novel, both intimate and epic, that intertwines the past, present, and future of two lovers bound by the passing of great comets overhead and a coterie of remarkable ancestors.

    Róisín and François are immediately drawn to each other when they meet at a remote research base on the frozen ice sheets of Antarctica. At first glance, the pair could not be more different. Older by a few years, Róisín, a daughter of Ireland and a peripatetic astronomer, joins the science team to observe the fracturing of a comet overhead. François, the base’s chef, has just left his birthplace in Bayeux, France, for only the second time in his life. Yet devastating tragedy and the longing for a fresh start, which they share, as well as an indelible but unknown bond that stretches back centuries, connect them to each other.

    Helen Sedgwick carefully unfolds their surprisingly intertwined paths, moving forward and back through time to reveal how these lovers’ destinies have long been tied to each other by the skies—the arrival of comets great and small. In telling Róisín and François’s story, Sedgwick illuminates the lives of their ancestors, showing how strangers can be connected and ghosts can be real, and how the way we choose to see the world can be as desolate or as beautiful as the comets themselves.

    A mesmerizing, skillfully crafted, and emotionally perceptive novel that explores the choices we make, the connections we miss, and the ties that inextricably join our fates, The Comet Seekers reflects how the shifting cosmos unite us all through life, beyond death, and across the whole of time.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperAudio
    Release dateOct 11, 2016
    ISBN9780062571540
    Author

    Helen Sedgwick

    Helen Sedgwick is a writer, editor, and physicist, who grew up in London and now lives in the Scottish highlands. Helen was the managing director of Cargo Publishing from 2014 to 2015, and she founded Wildland Literary Editors in 2012. The same year she won a Scottish Book Trust New Writers Award and since then her writing has been published internationally and broadcast on BBC Radio 4. She was awarded a distinction from the MLitt in Creative Writing at Glasgow University in 2008. Before that, she worked as a research physicist, earning a PhD in Physics from Edinburgh University. She lives near the Dornoch Firth with her partner, photographer Michael Gallacher.

    Related to The Comet Seekers

    Related audiobooks

    Literary Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    Related categories

    Reviews for The Comet Seekers

    3.5/5

    51 ratings7 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      I loved this book! Starting and finishing in Antarctica the story follows the lives of the two main characters, using snapshots throughout history, from when comets were visible from earth. It's a story of families, ghosts, love and dreams. Charming!
    • 3/5
      As the story opens, Róisín, an astronomer, and François, a chef, meet at a scientific base in Antarctica. The goal of the Antarctic project is to study comets. The narrative is episodic, coinciding appearances of various comets between the years 1066 and 2017. The episodes loop through history, forward and backward, across hundreds of years to provide these two protagonists’ backstories.

      We meet Liam, Róisín’s cousin and first love, in Ireland, and Severine, François’s mother, in France. Liam is emotionally bound to his family’s farm. Severine sees ghosts and is afraid to leave them. The ghosts arrive with the comets and the looping stories provide flashbacks to fragments of their lives. Róisín and François have each been through turmoil and grief. Their separate paths eventually merge in Antarctica.

      I do not usually enjoy ghost stories, and never felt immersed in this one. The writing is beautiful, but the narrative is disjointed. Just as one story starts to gel, it abruptly shifts to another in a different country, even within the same chapter. One of the primary themes is the interconnectedness of humankind. I liked the theme and the concept but found the execution lacking.
    • 3/5
      This is one of those books that is really well written and has beautiful descriptions. But I found some of the relationships between characters bizarre and this just threw me out of the narrative. Events all center around comets and the lives of the people are connected to them. Great idea. Just wish the characters had been better.
    • 5/5
      Two people meet in Antarctica and are drawn to each other, recognizing the other's struggle with loss. Róisín is a few years older, a scientist, comet fanatic, and world traveler. François is the cook on the base, long a resident of Bayeux, France, which his mother Severine would never leave, even for vacations. She has finally gotten him to agree to travel himself, and since he's always been intrigued by Antarctica, he takes this last-minute job. Cooking is his passion. Severine's passion, on the other hand, is periodic visits from all the ghosts in her family, with whom she has a more real relationship than with François. He has never believed her about the ghosts, though, and when they appear (whenever a comet is visible in the sky), he is alternately furious, hurt and embarrassed by her attention to them. To the reader, as to Severine, the ghosts are quite real and distinct.The story goes back and forth between comet appearances. Severine isn't the first in her family to have visits from the dead. The earliest of the ghosts is Ælfgyva, shown in the Bayeux Tapestry being attacked by a cleric. In this story she has embroidered this scene, as well as that of the comet of that time, on the tapestry. There is also a ghost from the 16th c or so who cannot get past her anger at being burned alive and her son taken from her, because she doesn't know what happened to him and whether she has descendants. Róisín and François slowly get to know each other, listening to each other's stories and wondering what they can do to help each other. François can't help thinking he's seen Róisín before, several times (he has). How their families' stories intertwine becomes clear toward the end.I loved this book. It's not a ghost story in any kind of scary way, except for Severine, in front of whom the burnt ghost occasionally bursts into flames. Some reviewers found the format confusing, but I thought the comet sightings, and the characters who carry through the centuries, were perfect.
    • 3/5
      The nonlinear nature of this book made the story hard for me to follow. Jumping from century to century, this book traces a family of comet watchers and follows them as they tackle their own past. An interesting concept, but it didn't pull me in and the nonlinear didn't help.
    • 4/5
      I really like how the author unfolded the story. At first it seemed hard to follow but by the end of the story it seemed like it came full circle. I really like how the author wove fact and superstition as well as developed the history and relationships between the characters.
    • 3/5
      3.5 starsThe Comet Seekers is beautifully written. I was so excited to read it based on the summary and other reviews I had read. Somehow, I just did not totally connect with the story. There are SO many characters that I found it hard to keep up with them all. I also just did not love the story line. Sedgwick’s prose is lyrical, and I truly enjoyed reading her writing so after several days of thinking about the book after I finished it, I decided to give it 3.5 stars. Her descriptions of Antarctica are very descriptive, and I felt like I was being transported there. She conveys the isolation, the darkness, and the ice and cold phenomenally well. That was my favorite part of the book by far (and the cover which is spectacular). Thanks to BookBrowse for the chance to read this ARC in exchange for an honest review.