Huge thanks to NetGalley for my copy, 4/5.

This is a strange, enchanting and hugely ambitious book.

Both Thomas Hart and Grace Macauley are singular people - worshippers at Bethesda Strict Baptist church, they live a life that seems at odds with their era, steeped in the language of the King James Bible and the clothes and beautiful things of the Victorian age. But both Thomas and Grace yearn for more, G’d is part of their bones, but their faith is shaky and when unrequited love comes to them their paths are altered and their friendship blown apart.

Running alongside these stories is a story of obsession with a forgotten female astronomer and the sheer wonder and awe of the night sky. And for fans of the Essex Serpent, there is even a little nod to a favourite character!

Just a little too much ghost Maria, but overall gorgeous book with stunning prose and big, important ideas.

Would recommend.

It was interesting. Not what I expected. I struggled with the main storyline and the different unrequired loves.
I felt that their should be a golden thread but it snapped for me.

Having LOVED previous work by Perry, I was disappointed that I struggled to finish Enlightenment. Although I appreciate the characters and the main protagonist felt relatable and likeable, and it had what could have been an interesting plot, I found the descriptions tedious and altogether too drawn out. I did want to continue on with the story but could not get past what felt like filler content in order to do so. The concept of the stars and astrology was an enticing one, and I did enjoy the way we saw Thomas’ true feelings and newspaper columns in conjunction. Unfortunately the book as a wile missed the mark for me.

I liked The Essex Serpent, truly loved Melmoth and could not finish After Me Comes the Flood, so my experience with Sarah Perry is a bit patchy. I'm afraid Enlightenment was another DNF for me, as I foundered on the very premise of the novel. I just could not believe that all of this was happening in 1997. OK, our characters are unusual, isolated, religious folk, and I know about Perry's own Strict Baptist upbringing, but I felt the nineties would still intrude into their consciousness far more than they do, even as an object of rejection or derison (or a lesson in the economic realities of being a very part-time journalist). Perry is a beautiful writer, but I couldn't invest in anything on the page. (If there is some kind of speculative reverse-The Village twist at the end, all is forgiven)

A story of love and astronomy told through two unlikely best friends over twenty years. Wonderfully atmospheric and mystical.

I'm a bit of a fan of Sarah Perry's writing. The subjects and characters can prove puzzling at times but I love the detail and the atmosphere of her gothic tales, which always seem to mix Victoriana with a relevance of the here and now. This book's release seemed very timely with the recent total eclipse and the author related on social media how she had travelled to Canada to experience it at first hand.

Thomas Hart and Grace Macauley both worship at the Bethesda Baptist chapel in the small Essex town of Aldleigh. They seem kindred spirits, even though there's a vast age difference between them. But they have their own troubles and dilemmas to deal with.

Thomas falls in love with James Bower, who runs the local museum and who shares an obsession with the ghost of the nineteenth-century female astronomer Maria Veduva. Thomas spends more and more time exploring the night skies, hoping astronomy will provide him with the answers and solace he desires.

Grace also finds a love which threatens to take her far from Thomas and her life in Aldleigh, and an experience of the wider world.

This is another stunning book from Sarah Perry which offers all sorts of layers and avenues to explore - the nature of love, life, faith, astronomy, and more!

A Baptist church in Essex is the meeting place for young Grace , brought up in a strict Baptist family and Thomas a grown man trying to reconcile his faith with his sexuality. There is a supernatural element to do with a "haunted house" and the "ghost" of a female astronomer from the past.

There fates intertwine and are linked to the idea of a comet, space and destiny/fate . There is also love in many forms from repressed , controlling to unconditional and both the lead characters have to balance love and belief in their own ways.

The pace of the book was slow at times but maybe because the style was thoughtful and reflective. The style is also "rich" and dense, rather like a piece of fruitcake which takes time to digest
I loved the bitchy, hypocritical character of Lorna, who projects all her own inadequacies upon other people. This was like the cherry in said fruitcake!

Sarah Perry is obviously a writer of great quality, but personally I preferred The Essex Serpent as Enlightenment seemed to lack momentum in its pacing at times, although a very "literary" book

It's an ok, easy to follow read. Enjoyable in parts and slightly off in others for me personally, Sarah Perry is a new author to me.

Enlightenment is a layered mix of religion and faith, comets and astronomy, ghosts, history, love, art and taking or missing opportunities to find happiness. I really liked the character of Thomas Hart, who becomes obsessed with the Hale-Bopp comet in 1997 and goes on a journey to discover what happened to the 19th century astronomer Maria Veduva whose ghost is rumoured to haunt the local manor house. His story was the most interesting to me as he grapples with his Baptist faith and his sexuality when James Bower is drawn into Thomas' orbit.

I didn't really take to the character of Grace Macaulay and it felt to me that Perry didn't spend as much time on developing her as she did with Thomas.

Overall, it was a good story but I did find it dragged a bit from the middle of Part 2 to the first half of Part 3. The sense of being in a small Essex village came through strongly and the research on the cosmos and science/astronomy was done well. I think the narrative just tried to fit in too many things and as a result it would have been a better book for me with more focus on Thomas and perhaps a first-person narrative from the ghost/astronomer, Maria. Nice little nod to The Essex Serpent tucked away in the final third, though!

This is a fascinating book. Sarah Perry writes beautifully, often lyrically, and has managed to evoke place and characters in a way that allows an apparently unexceptionable story about the uncovering of the past to become gripping. I was especially struck by the way that the story is framed by descriptions of buildings - Lowlands, the big house, and Bethesda, the chapel - and visual and aural details which echo through the story - descriptions of clothing, the sound of trains, the sound of seed pearls dropping on the floor.

While firmly rooted in the 21st century, the characters seem to be drawn from an earlier time which makes the book read like a historical novel. This unusual aspect allows the story to grapple with big themes: the importance of history and questions about how we should understand it through a modern lens; the different forms of love, the problem of communicating deep emotions and their link to physical infirmity,; differing attitudes to religious belief and its relationship to modern science.

The relationships among the four main characters - Thomas, a journalist; Grace, who he has loved since she was a motherless baby; James, a museum curator who Thomas also comes to love; and Nathan, Grace's boyfriend - play out against a historical detective story as Thomas seeks to uncover the astronomical work of Maria, a Romanian who lived at Lowlands in the late 19th century. As he becomes drawn into the quest she appears to him in ghostly form, becoming a fifth vivid character in her own right.

There is a great deal of astronomy in the book which I found interesting - and necessary to the story - but a little overwhelming in its detail. But this is a fine book and its people and places linger in the reader's memory.


Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC.

A dreamy, well-written novel that didn't quite come together for me. As a fan of The Essex Serpent and Melmoth I was looking forward to this one, but despite the beautiful prose and the well done characters something was missing. The main character, Thomas, is very compelling and the side storyline of the female astronomer was very interesting and might have benefited from being more deeply explored, but it felt like the book tried to go in too many directions at once.

Sometimes you have to accept that an author is not for you. I tried the Essex Serpent several times but never managed to get very far with it. I didn’t like the writing style and even the font annoyed me.

I thought I would try again with Enlightenment as so many people praise her writing. I tried, I really did but I did not find enlightenment as to why so many people enjoy her writing. Not for me, but I suspect I am the one losing out here.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC

I really wanted to like this as I loved The Essex Serpent. But sadly this book just did not work for me. I couldn’t get to grips with the sense of time and place, the slow moving plot or the characters. I’m sure it’s a good book, Sarah Perry writes beautifully, but I couldn’t find my way into this story. I think sometimes a book just doesn’t work for one person, but others find it a great read, as we don’t all appreciate the same things. With thanks to the publishers and NetGalley for an ARC

Sarah Perry returns to the locale of her hit novel (and TV series) The Essex Serpent to deliver another deep, dazzling book. Enlightenment takes place over three time periods and concerns itself with a historical mystery and so that it becomes, like the comets that come into the narrative, an elliptical tale. While linear on the surface there are echoes and resonances through the text and a musings on the nature of time itself.
Enlightenment opens in 1997 and centres on the character of Thomas Hart “a man of Essex, for his sins”. Fifty-year-old Hart lives in the town of Aldleigh, works for the local newspaper and is connected to a fundamentalist Baptist church in town. Hart is gay but he keeps that part of his persona separate, allowing it to emerge on his trips up to London. Through the newspaper, Hart becomes interested in astronomy and then a mystery and possible ghost associated from an old manor called Lowlands House. And through this he makes a connection with the local librarian James Bower. The story also revolves around Grace Macaulay, seventeen when the book opens who was the reason that Hart stayed at all, determined to help care for the child whose mother died in childbirth.
Enlightenment is written in a fairly old-fashioned style and so takes some time to get going. But once Perry has the pieces in place, it becomes entrancing. A heady mix of ideas, mystery (and discovery) and character. Hart moves from the mysteries of the night sky to the mysteries of physics, while not being able to see his impact on the people around him. He stumbles through his relationship with Grace, trying to protect her while also struggling with his own relationships. And all the while the mystery of the woman from Lowlands House slowly unravels through letters and chance discoveries.
Perry draws on her own childhood and her family involvement in a local fundamentalist church in the construction of Enlightenment. But this just adds a richness to the narrative rather than a feeling that Perry herself is trying to find some form of personal catharsis.
Enlightenment is the full package – thematically rich, peopled by rounded and fascinating characters with deep inner lives, engaged in a centuries old mystery set in a well realised milieu.

I heard good things about this book, so thought I’d give it a go. I did find it quite difficult to get into at the start. The narrative is beautifully written, but the plot is quite deep and the characters strange. Set in the fictional town of Aldleigh in Essex the story follows 17 year-old Grace Macaulay and 50 year-old Thomas Hart, both of whom attend the Bethesda Baptist Chapel in the town. Thomas is a journalist for the local newspaper and he’s Grace’s godfather. Told in multiple timelines between 1997 and 2017 our two main characters are confused by their feelings and how they contradict the teachings at their chapel.

Briefly, Thomas has an interesting relationship with Grace, almost a father figure. Both of them are looking for love but not always in the right place. His physical love unrequited Thomas turns to another love that of astronomy and is investigating 19th Century astronomer Maria Văduva Bell who is reputed to haunt a local property.

I can’t say more for fear of spoilers. There is a quite a lot of narrative about astronomy some of which went over my head a bit, I know my partner would have loved this! Quite a slow read but that seems to fit with the story and allows the author to explore issues more deeply. It is a complex plot and a book I needed to concentrate on so not an easy read but a very satisfying one.

In the small town of Aldleigh sits the Bethesda Chapel, home to a non-conformist group of worshippers. Thomas and Grace are both members of the congregation but both are undone by love. Teenage Grace falls in love with one of the town boys and questions her faith. Thomas is gay and lives a secret life in London but falls heavily for a married curator whom he meets as he investigates the life of Maria Vaduca. Maria's ghost haunts both as they strive to prove her worth as an amateur astronomer.
There is always a strong theme of the supernatural in Perry's writings and here is no different but it is less overt and more of a background influence. The story is not about haunting but about discovery and regret, it is slow but beautifully written and the prose draws the reader in until they become completely invested in the lives of this small community, a wonderful read.

"Enlightenment" by Sarah Perry was one I picked up with quite a bit of curiosity thanks to the hype around "The Essex Serpent." Perry's writing is lovely and has a distinct flair to it, though the story itself occasionally had me lost. It explores some deep themes about personal connections, beliefs, and the wider universe, which can get you thinking.

Set in the quaint, imagined corridors of Aldleigh, we meet Thomas and Grace, two characters linked by a strict church and both trying to figure out their own paths. The narrative spans a good chunk of time, and I have to admit, I was hoping for more on the mysterious astronomer that the book sometimes references. But the main story really revolves around Thomas and James and their journey into her history.

Perry’s depiction of religion and science as companions rather than foes is refreshing, presenting them as shades of human experience rather than stark contrasts. "Enlightenment" is a tapestry of human emotions and beliefs, a quiet musing on life's grandeur, and the subtle, unfathomable connections that bind us to each other and the world around us

Grateful for Netgaley for the arc

Enlightenment is a delightful read set in a small town Aldleigh in Essex with the local journalist of the Essex chronicle - Thomas Hart meandering through life. He is a member of a local church – the Bethesda Baptist chapel and it is there he meets Ronald Macauley who is the sole parent to his newborn daughter Grace. As the years go by, the tale revolves around Grace’s and Thoams’s relationship and their love interests as well as with the nineteenth-century female astronomer Maria Veduva. Thomas is on a mission to learn about Maria and the events leading up to her disappearance in the 1880s. The book spans several decades with comets being centre of their universe with the mundanity of life pushing through.
The peripheral characters like Nathan and Richard are strong and become more pronounced as they appear and re-appear throughout the story. A beautifully written book with wonderfully engaging lost souls but with glimpses of love and celestial enlightenment with the true star shining in the sky.

A beautiful love story to the skies. Full of love, of stars, of comets and the mystery of the skies above us.
Thomas’s story is a fascinating one - his found love of the moon and the skies opens up a new world for him, Grace, Nathan and others in the town around him. His strange and wordy articles for the newspaper define him exactly and I could imagine him walking the streets with his neck and eyes trained on the night sky.
Grace was a wonderful character - guileless and naive she was a brilliantly open book who was so easy to love - her passion and fire maintained even through such hard times. I loved the complicated relationship she and Thomas had.
Sarah Perry’s writing is beautiful and lyrical and this story flows like the moon’s reflection on water.

I don't think Sarah Perry and I are a good match. I find the ideas and themes behind her books interesting, her characters original and her prose beautiful. But I always feel like I'm wading through mud reading her writing, grasping pieces of storyline, fascinating details, beautiful sentences, but ultimately struggling to piece it altogether and end up feeling like I am missing something. I really wanted to like this book, but just found it disjointed and confusing. It's a shame, because I enjoyed spending time with the characters, but I couldn't gel with the flow and ended up DNFing this at 36%.
This honest review is given with thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this book.

A multi layered novel that is beautifully written and tackles religion head on, the story develops its main characters over 3 periods each roughly 10 years apart and what makes them return to their religious community