First Line Friday: The Promise of Stardust by Priscille Sibley

It’s been a busy week around here. First week of a new semester, Oscar season really kicks off, Book Riot’s Start Here: Read Your Way Into 25 Amazing Authors was released with my chapter on John Irving, and with a new week comes a new illness. Unfortunately, just as I started to recover from the 4-week-old cough that plagued me through the holidays, I was hit with another bad cold. So I’ve been a little bit slacky lately. Including that post I promised with my Best of 2012. Whoops.

But as always, I can at least share my newest book with you – it is one of my favorite parts of Fridays.

This week I’m reading Priscille Sibley’s debut novel The Promise of Stardust, which is being released on Feb. 5th. The premise of the book feels a little “ripped from the headlines:” Matt Beaulieu a neurosurgeon is faced with an impossible decision when his wife, Elle – childhood best friend and lifetime companion – has an accident that results in traumatic head trauma and brain death. Having watched her mother suffer with a long illness before succumbing, Elle never wanted to be kept alive on machines; Matt accepts that he must take her off life support – until its revealed that Elle is 8-weeks pregnant. Though Elle has struggled to carry a baby to full-term, there is a chance that the baby could survive in Elle’s body until it could be delivered safely.

However, Matt’s mother loves Elle as her own daughter, and disagrees with Matt’s wish to keep Elle alive for the sake of the baby. Armed with Elle’s living will and medical power of attorney, she’s prepared to fight her son in court to protect Elle’s wishes.

I’m just about 100 pages in, and already I’m having trouble putting it down. It’s haunting, and the pace is quick. I’m loving it so far, and it’s forcing me to think about my own feelings on tough issues. Sibley is a neonatal intensive care nurse as well, which means the medical aspect at least will be both accurate and compelling. The title of the book refers back to the fact that Elle is an astrophysicist and former astronaut, but it seems to have much more significance as the books keeps going. The first line begins that reference quite beautifully:

Late that night — on our last night — we lay in awe, mesmerized again by the Perseid meteor showers as they transformed stardust into streamers of light.

I have a feeling I’ll finish this one quickly.

What are you reading this weekend?