Enlightenment

Unlikely best friends Thomas and Grace are bound together by questions of faith, love and astronomy in this dazzling summer read from the #1 bestselling author.

Thomas Hart and Grace Macaulay have lived all their lives in the small Essex town of Aldleigh. Though separated in age by three decades, the pair are kindred spirits – torn between their religion and their desire to explore the world. But their friendship is ruptured by the arrival of love.

Over the course of twenty years, Thomas and Grace will find their lives brought back into orbit as a devastating story of passion and scientific adventure unfolds and Aldleigh’s unique mysteries are revealed.

Review

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

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

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

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

Tender, ruminative, philosophical ― Times Literary Supplement

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

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

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

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*

About the Author

Sarah Perry is the internationally bestselling author of the novels Enlightenment, Melmoth, The Essex Serpent and After Me Comes the Flood, and the non-fiction Essex Girls. She is a winner of the Waterstones Book of the Year Award and the British Book of the Year Award. Enlightenment was longlisted for the Booker Prize 2025 and her other work has been nominated for major literary prizes including the Women’s Prize for Fiction, the Dylan Thomas Prize, the Folio Prize and the Costa Novel Award. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.