The Stargazer’s Sister

Out in paperback December 13, 2016

From the acclaimed author of The Last First Day: a beautiful new period novel — a nineteenth-century story of female empowerment before its time — based on the life of Caroline Herschel, sister of the great astronomer William Herschel and an astronomer in her own right.

This exquisitely imagined novel opens as the great astronomer and composer William Herschel rescues his sister Caroline from a life of drudgery in Germany and brings her to England and a world of music-making and stargazing. Lina, as Caroline is known, serves as William’s assistant and the captain of his exhilaratingly busy household. William is generous, wise, and charismatic, an obsessive genius whom Lina adores and serves with the fervency of a beloved wife. When William suddenly announces that he will be married, Lina watches as her world collapses. With her characteristically elegant prose, Brown creates from history a compelling story of familial collaboration and conflict, the sublime beauty of astronomy, and the small but essential place we have within a vast and astonishing cosmos. Through Lina’s trials and successes, we witness the dawning of an early feminist consciousness, of a woman struggling to find her own place among the stars.

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What better gift than a book? If you’re interested in purchasing an inscribed copy of The Stargazer’s Sister, please contact the author to learn more.

Published by Pantheon Books / ISBN: 978-0-8041-9793-9

“A haunting evocation — actual and imagined — of the life of Caroline ‘Lina’ Hershel, the younger sister of the eighteenth-century astronomer William Herschel. The tale is deeply satisfying, a testament to Carrie Brown’s seductive voice and her ability to translate Lina’s deep emotional life in all its complexity, both joyful and heartbreaking. I love this book, a wonderful adventure and a resonating example of the difficulties faced by so many women for so very long.”

Robb Forman Dew

National Book Award-winning author of Dale Loves Sophie to Death

“Brown’s writing is as luminous as the skies her characters contemplate.”

Caroline Leavitt

The Boston Globe

“Brown creates a spellbinding account of two lives intertwined and bolstered by awe. As Lina stands alone at her telescope, gazing at the stars “scattered like fistfuls of shining grain” across the sky, she feels “the joy of being amazed” by the universe. Readers may feel the same sense of wonder at Brown’s sparkling narrative, about a woman finding her place in the world.”

Shelf Awareness

“Brown brings the true story of the Herschel siblings to life in exquisite details and deftly explores what it means for Caroline to be an intelligent woman far ahead of her time.”

BookPage