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The Sound of a Thousand Stars by Rachel Robbins Published by Crooked Lane Books on October 8, 2024
Genres: Fiction / Historical / 20th Century / World War II, Fiction / Jewish, Fiction / Romance / Historical / 20th Century
Pages: 320
Format: ARC, eBook, Paperback
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Oppenheimer meets Hidden Figures in this sweeping historical debut where two Jewish physicists form an inseverable bond amidst fear and uncertainty.
Sure to captivate readers of Kate Quinn and Bonnie Garmus, The Sound of a Thousand Stars eerily mirrors modern-day questions of wartime ethics and explores what it means to survive—at any cost.
Alice Katz is a young Jewish physicist, one of the only female doctoral students at her university, studying with the famed Dr. Oppenheimer. Her well-to-do family wants her to marry a man of her class and settle down. Instead, Alice answers her country’s call to come to an unnamed city in the desert to work on a government project shrouded in secrecy.
At Los Alamos, Alice meets Caleb Blum, a poor Orthodox Jew who has been assigned to the explosives division. Around them are other young scientists and engineers who have quietly left their university posts to come live in the desert.
No one seems to know exactly what they are working on—what they do know is that it is a race and that they must beat the Nazis in developing an unspeakable weapon. In this atmosphere of fear and uncertainty, and despite their many differences, Alice and Caleb find themselves drawn to one another.
Inspired by the author’s grandparents and sure to appeal to fans of Good Night, Irene, The Sound of a Thousand Stars is a propulsive novel about love in desperate times, the consequences of our decisions, and the roles we play in history.
A haunting and heartbreaking story of love happening in desperate times. ~ Amanda – Simply Love Books
The Sound of a Thousand Stars is a haunting and heartbreaking story of love happening in desperate times. The story is told in three narratives; two young scientists who answer the call to go to the desert in Los Alamos and pursue the science of Dr. Oppenheimer in WWII, and the third story is told backwards of a survivor of the Hiroshima bombing, a Hibakusha, named Haruki Sato, and how his life was irrevocably changed from that fateful day in 1945. Alice Katz and Caleb Blum are both in pursuit of their higher degrees when they both go to Los Alamos and work on secretive experiments, not knowing exactly what they are building and for what purpose. Once it is realized what they are building, the moral and ethical implications are born and what they played in the building of a nuclear bomb. The story isn’t your typical romance of a HEA at the end of it but more of a historical fiction story with a romance that developed at the wrong time and place. The Sound of a Thousand Stars is a compelling story of the human element behind the science of The Manhattan Project, and how it isn’t easy for those who lived it day in and day out. Based on the author’s grandparent’s life who lived at Los Alamos, I thought it was well-written and did a good job of depicting the lives of those who lived there and those that survived.