Promotional Information

An historical love story for fans of Tracy Chevalier, Joanne Harris and Rose Tremain

About the Author

Amy Brill is an award-winning writer and producer who has worked for PBS and MTV. Her fiction and nonfiction have been published in Salon, Guernica, Time Out New York, and Redbook, among others, and anthologized in Before and After- Stories from New York and Lost and Found. She has won fellowships in fiction from the Edward Albee Foundation, Jentel, the Millay Colony, Fundacion Valparaiso, the Constance Saltonstall Foundation, and the American Antiquarian Society in Worcester, MA. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two small daughters. The Movement of Stars is her first novel.

Reviews

In Hannah, Amy Brill has fashioned an extraordinary character and quiet hero -- a woman who charts her own course, and who places knowledge and her own soul's independence up with the highest, brightest stars
*Paula McLain, author of The Paris Wife*

Amy Brill shines in her sparkling debut novel, The Movement of Stars, inspired by the work of a 19th-century female astronomer
*Vanity Fair*

A spectacular debut . . . I cheered for Hannah Price, our feisty heroine, as she unraveled the mystery of her own desires while burning a trail for other women to follow
*Hannah Tinti, author of The Good Thief*

Probing yet accessible, beautifully written and richly characterized
*Kirkus*

A bittersweet story, movingly told . . . Brill's uncluttered prose mirrors her heroine's clear eye and Quaker reserve as Hannah explores both the expanding universe and her burgeoning emotions -- amid increasingly binding circumstances.
*Daphne Kalotay, author of Russian Winter*

Compelling . . . A stirring historical drama
*Booklist*

Although she spends hours searching the heavens from her father's rooftop observatory, Hannah Price lives a circumscribed earthly life in 1845 Nantucket. Attendance at meetings of the Society of Friends and work as junior librarian in the Atheneum structure her days. Everything changes after she agrees to teach Isaac Martin, a black seaman from the Azores. Their association progresses from lessons on mathematics and astronomy to discussion of their lives plus a growing physical attraction. Despite the Quakers' professed support of racial equality, the community ultimately condemns and excludes Hannah.ÅWithout the support of a father, brother, or husband, Hannah has little chance to attain her dream of discovering a comet and winning the gold medal offered by the king of Denmark. VERDICT Inspired by and incorporating details from the life of Maria Mitchell, America's first female professional astronomer, Brill's debut raises thought-provoking questions on the limitations to achievement societies impose based on race, gender, or divergent beliefs. For readers of historical fiction, particularly those with an interest in science, who savor the unfolding of a character's emotional and intellectual development. [See Prepub Alert, 11/1/12.]-Kathy Piehl, Minnesota State Univ. Lib., Mankato (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.