The Bookish Mindset

Overview:

Title: Celestial Lights
Author: Cecile Pin
Published: March 2026
Genre: Literary
Themes: Family, Relationships

One sentence summary: Celestial Lights follows Ollie as he’s going where no man has gone before, to Jupiter’s moon to search for life.

One sentence review: More exquisite writing from Pin that starts gentle but leaves a heavy hole after finishing.

Review:

This is one of those beautiful literary novels that starts light like a pallet cleanser, feeling light and gentle, like twinkling fairy lights and soft warm glows. It lulls you into a false sense of security because it means that you want to ignore the signs of heaviness that are planted as the story progresses.

But then the heaviness catches up with you and you find it’s always been there, it’s been nestling its way in from the beginning. And then it’s too late, you know there can only be devastation up ahead.

The structure follows his diary entries of present day and his journey to the space craft he currently resides on. Written brilliantly, this weighed heavy on me long after I put it down and I still find my thoughts drifting back to it.

The plot is slow, as it should be, this is not one to rush through. It’s one to savour and sit with.

Pin’s writing is exquisite as I expected and I’m definitely recommending this one. If you’re ready for a hard hitter about family, sacrifices and incredible journeys then this is for you.

If you’d like to get yourself a copy, you can support local bookshops and my work while doing so on Bookshop.org with this link here or on audio with Libro.fm here.

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And don’t forget to check out my other blogs and reviews – you can find books with similar themes in the same folder link below, or click back onto blogs to see the whole offering.

Last updated 20/05/2026