The Wide Starlight, Nicole Lesperance
The Wide Starlight, Nicole Lesperance
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The Wide Starlight

Author: Nicole Lesperance

Narrator: Brittany Pressley

Unabridged: 8 hr 44 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 02/16/2021


Synopsis

The Hazel Wood meets The Astonishing Color of After in this dreamy, atmospheric novel that follows sixteen-year-old Eli as she tries to remember what truly happened the night her mother disappeared off a frozen fjord in Norway under the Northern Lights.

Never whistle at the Northern Lights, the legend goes, or they'll sweep down from the sky and carry you away.

Sixteen-year-old Eline Davis knows it's true. She was there ten years ago, on a frozen fjord in Svalbard, Norway, the night her mother whistled at the lights and then vanished.
 
Now, Eli lives an ordinary life with her dad on Cape Cod. But when the Northern Lights are visible over the Cape for just one night, she can't resist the possibility of seeing her mother again. So she whistles--and it works. Her mother appears, with snowy hair, frosty fingertips and a hazy story of where she's been all these years. And she doesn't return alone.

Along with Eli's mother's reappearance come strange, impossible things. Narwhals swimming in Cape Cod Bay, meteorites landing in Eli's yard, and three shadowy princesses with ominous messages. It's all too much, too fast, and Eli pushes her mother away. She disappears again--but this time, she leaves behind a note that will send Eli on a journey across continents, to the northern tip of the world:

Find me where I left you.

About The Author

Nicole Lesperance grew up on Cape Cod and graduated from Wesleyan University. She spent a few years in London and now lives near Boston with her husband, two kids, and two rambunctious black cats. She writes YA and middle grade books. Follow her on Twitter @niclesperance or visit her online at NicoleLesperance.com.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Angela on February 14, 2021

Thank you to NetGalley and PenguinTeen for an eARC in exchange for an honest review. I am definitely in the minority when I say this book just wasn't for me. I loved what the author was trying to do with mixing fiction and folklore together. I just felt like it was clunky and I didn't feel for the ma......more

Goodreads review by belle ☆ミ (thisbellereadstoo) on April 01, 2021

rep: mental illness the wide starlight is magical story about a girl who's desperately searching for her mother who disappeared one night along with the aurora borealis. after her mother vanished, eline's father moved them away from norway to the united states. as eline slowly filled in the gaps of n......more

Goodreads review by Renata on March 20, 2021

At first I was a little bit confused on what was going on or how the magic and the world works but somehow it’s better this way so you can understand everything later. The story was nice, a little bit slow for me, but still very interesting and pretty sad. I loved how Eli, the protagonist, in the end......more

Goodreads review by Adah on February 20, 2021

The Wide Starlight was pretty cool from start to finish.......more


Quotes

A Junior Library Guild Selection
A Kirkus Best Book of 2021

A 2021 Massachusetts Book Award Must-Read Book


★ "With her vividly rendered settings, emotionally complex characters, and sweet and sinister magical realism, Lesperance may be a promising successor to Alice Hoffman...[The Wide Starlight is] sharp and snow-dusted yet strangely cozy; a comforting winter's read." —Kirkus, starred review

★ "A lovely exploration of grief and the way stories shape our lives—and how reshaping stories can have consequences. The pages fly by as Lesperance’s compelling voice and masterful switching between present-day narrative and fairy-tale past smoothly build a portrait of intergenerational love, loss, and magic rooted in a glittering Arctic landscape." —BCCB, starred review

"This mesmerizing and sometimes heartbreaking fantasy reveals the complicated relationships between mothers and daughters...A haunting contemporary fantasy." —School Library Journal

"Lesperance weaves the myth and magic of Norwegian folklore into a realistic setting in this wintry tale of a teen searching for her long-lost mother...an emotionally complex tale of the love between mothers and daughters that balances between ominous and cozy." —Booklist

"[A] promising debut." —Publishers Weekly

“Poetic and richly imagined, The Wide Starlight is a spell-binding journey through a world of Nordic fairytale…the heart-wrenching story of a teenage girl and her quest to reclaim and understand the mother who abandoned her.” —Edith Patou, award-winning author of East and West

"Nicole Lesperance blends crystalline prose, an atmospheric setting and memorable characters to create a story that dances and shines as brightly as the northern lights in her debut YA novel, The Wide Starlight." —BookPage

A Junior Library Guild Selection