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The Stars Are Not Yet Bells

A Novel

Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available
NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORKER AND NPR
Through the scrim of fading memory, an elderly woman confronts a lifetime of secrets and betrayal, under the mysterious skies of her island home


Off the coast of Georgia, near Savannah, generations have been tempted by strange blue lights in the sky near an island called Lyra. At the height of WWII, impressionable young Elle Ranier leaves New York City to forge a new life together on the island with her new husband, Simon. There they will live for decades, raising a family while waging a quixotic campaign to find the source of the mysterious blue offshore light—and the elusive minerals rumored to lurk beneath the surface.
Fifty years later,  Elle looks back at her life on the mysterious island—and at a secret she herself has guarded for decades. As her memory recedes into the mists of Alzheimer’s disease, her life seems a tangle of questions: How did her husband’s business, now shuttered, survive so long without ever finding the legendary Lyra stones? How did her own life crumble under treatment for depression? And what became of Gabriel—the handsome, raffish other man who came to the island with them and risked everything to follow the lights?
Darkly romantic and deeply haunting, The Stars Are Not Yet Bells pulls us into a story of the tantalizing, faithless relationship between ourselves and the lives and souls we leave behind.
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    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from October 18, 2021
      Assadi (Sonora) returns with a lyrical and melancholic tale of grief, love, and a marriage’s open secrets, narrated by a woman who has Alzheimer’s. In 1941, Elle Ranier and her jeweler husband, Simon, moved from New York City as young newlyweds to a remote island off the coast of Georgia in search of a variety of jewel akin to diamonds and known locally as the “blue legend.” Many people have drowned while seeking the minerals, which are believed to lie at the bottom of the ocean, and Simon’s fruitless search eventually leaves his business in shambles. Now, in 1997, Elle remembers her previous lover, Gabriel, in Brooklyn, whom she arranged to work with Simon on the island after claiming he was her cousin, and who died shortly after they arrived. Then, in 1961, Simon grows close with a geologist hired to prospect for the jewels. Elle’s reminiscences become hazy as a result of her Alzheimer’s, though “for a while, life remained in bright dreams,” which evokes a sense of magic with images of mermaids and fairies. As the story of the trio’s arrival to the island and their subsequent misfortunes gradually unfolds, Elle circles around the secrets about her and Simon’s relationships with other men. The beauty of Assadi’s prose and the splendid depiction of a love that transcends death make for a singular rendition of an oft-told story. This will leave readers undone. Agent: PJ Mark, Janklow & Nesbit Assoc.

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Narrator Hillary Huber is the voice of Elle Ranier as she struggles to face her past and her secrets. Huber gives this unreliable narrator a compelling voice as Elle revisits the last 50 years of her life and loves, searching for meaning even as Alzheimer's disease swallows her memories. Her voice is puzzled as she looks back on her life on the island of Lyra, off the coast of Georgia, where her husband, Simon, searched for the source of a mysterious blue light that hinted at a mineral gold mine. She is confused as she struggles to recognize her adult children. And her voice trembles with regret as she reimagines her relationship with Gabriel and the what-ifs of a life that might have been. N.E.M. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine
    • Library Journal

      March 1, 2022

      Elle and her husband Simon were sent to Lyra Island by Simon's wealthy father to explore the mysterious blue lights around the island and discover if they really harbor minerals with mystical properties. Decades later, Elle's mind is no longer her own and she can't tell the difference between the past and the present; her memories are jumbled. She starts to fixate on the one thing in her life that got away: her true love, Gabriel. But where has he gone? Why is Elle's life in such disarray and what has happened to Simon's family's business? What are the blue lights? Beautiful, heartbreaking prose takes listeners deep inside Elle's mind as she tries to piece together the timeline of her tumultuous life. This vivid and lyrical novel exploring the mind of a woman suffering from dementia in her old age is haunting and seductive. Narrator Hillary Huber does a perfect execution of Elle's disarrayed thoughts and narrative. VERDICT Poetic and enchanting, Assadi's (Sonora) story will stay with listeners long after they've finished the audiobook.--Erin Cataldi

      Copyright 2022 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

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