Friday Rec

Our Friday Recommendation:

In the wake of First Contact, one mother upends her life and her children’s futures as humanity reckons with its place in the universe.

In the quiet spring of 1980, a flicker of light in the Adirondack sky shatters an ordinary family’s world. What follows is an unforgettable five-decade journey of love, ambition, loss, and self-discovery as one mother’s fascination with distant life forever changes her children’s futures.

It’s March 1980 in a quiet Adirondack town. Carol Girard and her husband are navigating new parenthood when an inexplicable flicker of light appears in the sky—an unmistakable signal from intelligent life eleven light-years away. Nothing is known about these beings except that they know we exist.

As the world shifts under this new cosmic reality, we follow the Girard family across five decades: Carol, whose fascination with the distant intelligence drives a desperate search for spiritual meaning; her son Michael, who finds comfort in the earth beneath his feet rather than the stars above; and her daughter Ro, whose childhood dream of interstellar communication grows into something far grander.

Daring and expansive, soul-stirring and precise, The Radiant Dark by Alexandra Oliva is a novel about love, belonging, ambition, loss, and self-discovery that will stay with you long after the final page. Perfect for fans of thoughtful literary sci-fi and intimate family sagas. Highly recommended for your weekend read!