Light From Other Stars-Erika Swyler

Erika Swyler's "Light from Other Stars" is a poignant and inventive novel that deftly weaves together two distinct timelines to tell a story about ambition, wonder, and the profound bonds of family. In 1986, eleven-year-old Nedda Papas is an aspiring astronaut living in Easter, a small Florida Space Coast town, just miles from Cape Canaveral. Her world revolves around science, space, and her brilliant, if troubled, father, Theo, a former NASA physicist. The dream of reaching the stars feels almost within her grasp, a tangible possibility in a town where the sound of rocket launches is a familiar part of life.

However, the seemingly idyllic facade of Easter is shattered when the Challenger space shuttle tragically explodes, and, simultaneously, Theo's experimental machine, the "Crucible," designed to manipulate time, unleashes a strange phenomenon upon their town. Driven by an enduring grief for a son he lost years prior, Theo's desperate attempt to extend his living daughter's childhood accidentally alters the very fabric of time in Easter. Chaos ensues, and Nedda, along with her often-misunderstood mother, Betheen, a talented chemist turned baker, must confront the shocking ramifications of her father's secret invention and work to save their community from the unforeseen consequences.

Decades later, the novel also follows Nedda as an adult astronaut, finally realizing her lifelong dream aboard the spaceship Chawla, far from Earth. As she and her crewmates face a serious crisis in deep space, Nedda finds herself holding a crucial key to their survival, a key that lies in reconciling with her past and the profound events that shaped her childhood in Easter. "Light from Other Stars" is a powerful exploration of the sacrifices made for progress, the complex dynamics between fathers and daughters, and the enduring human desire to reach for the heavens, even when faced with the deepest losses and the most inexplicable phenomena.

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