The Pull of the Stars

Critics Review

• A visceral, harrowing, and revelatory vision of life, death, and love in a time of pandemic. This novel is stunning

  Emily St. John Mandel, author of Station Eleven

• The Pull of the Stars has a fever dream-like quality . . . as a tender record of humans coping as best they can with a pandemic, it’s about as moving and absorbing as it gets

  Evening Standard

• A timely, exquisite and unputdownable reminder of love and compassion in the smallest room where women are giving birth and other women are dying and yet love – in all its joy and complexity – still finds a place

  Rachel Joyce, author of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

• Extraordinarily prescient . . . With The Pull of the Stars, [Donoghue] again conjures up a setting that is at once claustrophobic in feel yet epic in sweep

  Daily Telegraph

• Donoghue writes with such brilliant relish . . . fascinating and resonant

  Sunday Times

• Eerily topical, Donoghue’s new novel reads like an episode of Call The Midwife set during a pandemic . . . It is some cocktail and Donoghue mixes the ingredients with impressive skill

  Mail on Sunday

• Remarkably prescient

  Irish Independent

• One of the Emerald Isle’s most glittering literary lights, Donoghue here delivers a historical fiction turned timely reminder of human resilience

  Oprah Magazine, 'Best Books of Summer 2020'

• It is rare for such a fast-paced story to be told so beautifully, and the writing is comical & exquisite

  Irish Independent

• Moving, gripping and dazzlingly written

  Stylist

• As strong and compelling as Jack in Room and Lib in The Wonder . . . a haunting and finely balanced literary novel

  Guardian

• Certainly, the currency of The Pull of the Stars gives it a gripping edge, but at its heart this is a story about friendship, love and compassion in extraordinary times . . . It’s an engrossing read. Donoghue’s writing is visceral and her female characters strike a powerful chord of humanity that stays with you

  Australian Women's Weekly

• Donoghue offers vivid characters and a gripping portrait of a world beset by a pandemic and political uncertainty. A fascinating read in these difficult times.

  Booklist

• Narrator Emma Lowe’s layered characterizations include distinct Irish accents and diction that illuminate the backgrounds of the protagonists and hospital staff. The pregnant women in their care are depicted with particular sensitivity; their pain, joy, and loss are all keenly felt. As circumstances around the women intensify, so will listeners’ investment in the outcomes of their stories.

  AudioFile

• Donoghue’s searing tale . . . Her blunt prose and detailed, painstakingly researched medical descriptions do full justice to the reality of the pandemic and the poverty that helps fuel it. Donoghue’s evocation of the 1918 flu, and the valor it demands of health-care workers, will stay with readers

  Publishers Weekly

• [Julia and Bridie’s] relationship forms the emotional core of a story rich in swift, assured sketches of achingly human characters coping as best they can in extreme circumstances . . . Darkly compelling, illuminated by the light of compassion and tenderness: Donoghue’s best novel since Room

  Kirkus (starred review)

• Eerily reminiscent of our current global health crisis, The Pull of the Stars brings readers intimately close to a world where health care workers risk it all to keep their patients alive

  Time

• Emma Donoghue’s latest is getting an early release, and it’s clear to understand why: In 1918 at the height of the Great Flu in Ireland, sick, pregnant women are quarantined together in a hospital while a group of overworked nurses tries to navigate their patients through the darkness

  Marie Claire

• Timely, punchy and gripping

  Evening Standard