A young widow grapples with the arrival of a once-in-a-lifetime comet and its tumultuous consequences, in a debut novel that blends mystery, astronomy, and romance, perfect for fans of Emma Cline’s The Girls and Ottessa Moshfegh’s Death in Her Hands.
Sylvia Knight is losing hope that the person who killed her husband will ever face justice. Since the night of the hit-and-run, her world has been shrouded in hazy darkness—until she meets Theo St. John, the discoverer of a rare comet soon to be visible to the naked eye.
As the comet begins to brighten, Sylvia wonders what the apparition might signify. She is soon drawn into the orbit of local mystic Joseph Evans, who believes the comet’s arrival is nothing short of a divine message. Finding herself caught between two conflicting perspectives of this celestial phenomenon, she struggles to define for herself where the reality lies. As the comet grows in the sky, her town slowly descends further and further into a fervor over its impending apex, and Sylvia’s quest to uncover her husband’s killer will push her and those around her to the furthest reaches of their very lives.
A novel about the search for meaning in a bewildering world, the loyalty of love, and the dangerous lengths people go to in pursuit of obsession, Bright Objects is a luminous, masterfully crafted literary thriller.
Genre: Mystery
Sylvia Knight is losing hope that the person who killed her husband will ever face justice. Since the night of the hit-and-run, her world has been shrouded in hazy darkness—until she meets Theo St. John, the discoverer of a rare comet soon to be visible to the naked eye.
As the comet begins to brighten, Sylvia wonders what the apparition might signify. She is soon drawn into the orbit of local mystic Joseph Evans, who believes the comet’s arrival is nothing short of a divine message. Finding herself caught between two conflicting perspectives of this celestial phenomenon, she struggles to define for herself where the reality lies. As the comet grows in the sky, her town slowly descends further and further into a fervor over its impending apex, and Sylvia’s quest to uncover her husband’s killer will push her and those around her to the furthest reaches of their very lives.
A novel about the search for meaning in a bewildering world, the loyalty of love, and the dangerous lengths people go to in pursuit of obsession, Bright Objects is a luminous, masterfully crafted literary thriller.
Genre: Mystery
Praise for this book
"A literary mystery of consummate elegance and gravity. Bright Objects traces a graceful orbit around the phenomena of human grief and love." - Jessica Au
"A novel written with immense grace, beauty, and depth, Bright Objects plumbs the farthest reaches of one widow's grief, ultimately revealing the brilliance of our humanity in the face of immense loss - the will to fight for what's right, the will to hope, and most importantly, the will to love again. A surprising, thrilling, and seductively dangerous comet of a book." - Chelsea Bieker
"Gripping, thrilling. An electric story of small towns, big secrets and the last great comet of the millennium." - Felicity McLean
"Bright Objects is a mesmerizing, profound tale of obsession, exploring the need to believe in something and the duty to live in reality. Ruby Todd infuses the novel with almost unbearable tension - it moves toward a breathtaking climax as surely as a comet hurtling toward Earth." - Clémence Michallon
"Bright Objects is the story of a woman consumed by an unquellable obsession, reduced by solitude and incompleteness, caught in an unconscious embattled conspiracy of her own making. Ruby Todd writes of the strain of fearful events and discoveries, and the fatal inevitability of a sense of guilt when someone close to one is killed, all the while revealing to us the hidden realities that lie in wait for us." - Susanna Moore
"I loved Bright Objects. Sylvia is an enormously appealing narrator who offers a thoughtful and nuanced perspective on a world turned on its axis." - Polly Stewart
"The X-Files meets Nick Cave's Ghosteen - science, faith, and human folly collide in this celestial melodrama." - Laura Elizabeth Woollett
"A novel written with immense grace, beauty, and depth, Bright Objects plumbs the farthest reaches of one widow's grief, ultimately revealing the brilliance of our humanity in the face of immense loss - the will to fight for what's right, the will to hope, and most importantly, the will to love again. A surprising, thrilling, and seductively dangerous comet of a book." - Chelsea Bieker
"Gripping, thrilling. An electric story of small towns, big secrets and the last great comet of the millennium." - Felicity McLean
"Bright Objects is a mesmerizing, profound tale of obsession, exploring the need to believe in something and the duty to live in reality. Ruby Todd infuses the novel with almost unbearable tension - it moves toward a breathtaking climax as surely as a comet hurtling toward Earth." - Clémence Michallon
"Bright Objects is the story of a woman consumed by an unquellable obsession, reduced by solitude and incompleteness, caught in an unconscious embattled conspiracy of her own making. Ruby Todd writes of the strain of fearful events and discoveries, and the fatal inevitability of a sense of guilt when someone close to one is killed, all the while revealing to us the hidden realities that lie in wait for us." - Susanna Moore
"I loved Bright Objects. Sylvia is an enormously appealing narrator who offers a thoughtful and nuanced perspective on a world turned on its axis." - Polly Stewart
"The X-Files meets Nick Cave's Ghosteen - science, faith, and human folly collide in this celestial melodrama." - Laura Elizabeth Woollett
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