BOOKS
The Comet Seekers
Left: UK paperback cover, right: US paperback cover
Two lives.
A thousand years.
One night sky.
Róisín and François first meet in the snowy white expanse of Antarctica. And everything changes.
While Róisín grew up in a tiny village in Ireland, ablaze with a passion for science and the skies and all there is to discover about the world, François was raised by his young mother, who dreamt of new worlds but was unable to turn her back on her past.
As we loop back through their lives, glimpsing each of them only when a comet is visible in the skies above, we see how their paths cross as they come closer and closer to this moment. Theirs are stories filled with love and hope and heartbreak, that show how strangers can be connected and ghosts can be real, and the world can be as lonely or as beautiful as the comets themselves.
Left: UK hardback cover, right: US hardback cover
Reviews & Press
“An exquisitely layered, thrilling novel, which leaps across centuries and continents to delve into the role of destiny and the elusiveness of perception and memory.” ~ New York Times
“A stellar love story that echoes down decades and centuries… Sedgwick’s talent shines dazzlingly bright in this ambitious literary debut.” ~ Glamour, 10 Best Novels of 2016
“Many of this novel’s pleasures have to do with teasing out the implications of Sedgwick’s intricate pattern…This web of associations, spun by recurring images and figures, lends a different spin to the idea of a love that’s meant to be.” ~ New York Times Book Review
“Helen Sedgwick’s story of many lives linked by comets over earth is brave, tender, vivid and magical.” ~ The Herald, Best Books of 2016
“A breathtaking tale full of love, hope and heartbreak. You’ll be utterly captivated from the first page.” ~ Elle, Book of the Month
“A haunting and wonderfully ethereal debut novel about first loves, inescapable loss, and the search for one’s place in a complicated world. …Uniquely structured and stylistically fascinating.” ~ Publishers Weekly
“A Spellbinding tale of love and loss, aglimmer with passion and melancholy.” ~ Sunday Express, S Magazine
“Sedgwick is a highly evocative writer who makes excellent use of nature to showcase her themes. …[This] charming debut maps the world’s big questions on an even larger plane.” ~ Irish Times
“The novel is a beautiful balance of contrasts, of characters who work the earth and those who study the sky, of those driven to travel and those tied to home.” ~ The List
“The elegance of this story is a little like a tapestry itself. The stitchery is deliberate and varied… This is a novel worthy of more than one reading.” ~ Otago Daily Times
“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 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 unites us all through life, beyond death, and across the whole of time.” ~ Chicago Review of Books, Ten Best New Books
“Beautiful, sad, moving, fascinating & original. I loved it.” Marian Keyes
“Helen Sedgwick has written a first novel of remarkable grace, beauty and insight, in which a careful love of language meets an immense storytelling talent. I was moved and inspired by this book.” Joseph O’Connor, author of Star of the Sea
“Haunting and beautiful, The Comet Seekers follows a constellation of lives from modern Antarctica to medieval England, all of them connected by an extraordinary mystery hidden deep in the past. A captivating story, deftly told, about those who are driven to explore, and those who must stay behind.” Helene Wecker, author of The Golem and the Jinni
“The Comet Seekers is a brave and tender debut from one of the brightest new stars of the literary world. It’s one of the most vivid, original and magical books I’ve read in years.” Kirsty Logan, author of The Gracekeepers
“Inspired by the mysteries of the Bayeux Tapestry, a work of art nearly a millennium old, The Comet Seekers weaves an exquisite tale of love and fate, impermanence and infinity, the pull of the sky and the bonds of earth. Helen Sedgwick charts the paths of the cosmos and the human heart with unnerving intelligence and grace. This is a novel about the universe, yes, but also about spaces small and secret—the homes we make for ourselves: how we build them, why we leave, and what it means to stay. A luminous debut.” Leslie Parry, author of Church of Marvels