We Burned So Bright
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
We Burned So Bright is the heartfelt, queer, road trip of a novel from TJ Klune, the Sunday Times bestselling author of the Cerulean Chronicles and The Bones Beneath My Skin
Husbands Don and Rodney have lived a good, long life. Together, they’ve experienced the highest highs of love and family, and lows so low that they felt like the end of the world.
Now, the world is ending for real. A wandering black hole is coming for Earth, and in a month, everything and everyone they’ve ever known will be gone.
Suddenly, after forty years together, Don and Rodney are out of time. They’re in a race against the clock to make it from Maine to Washington State to take care of some unfinished business before it’s all over.
On the road, they meet those who refuse to believe death is coming and those who rush to meet it. But there are also people living their final days as best they know how – impromptu weddings, bright burning bonfires, shared meals, new friends.
And as the black hole draws near, among ball lightning and under a cracked moon in a kaleidoscope sky, Don and Rodney will look back on their lives and ask if their best was good enough.
Is it enough to burn bright if nothing comes from the ashes?
Praise for TJ Klune
‘An enchanting sequel about found family’ – The New York Times on Somewhere Beyond the Sea
‘Like being wrapped up in a big gay blanket’ – V. E. Schwab, author of Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil, on The House in the Cerulean Sea
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The impending end of the world compels an older gay couple to take one last road trip in this melancholy outing from bestseller Klune (The House in the Cerulean Sea). A black hole has been inexorably approaching Earth's solar system; roughly a month remains before it swallows the planet. After 40 years together, Don and Rodney have experienced countless highs and lows, and they face the coming apocalypse with relative equanimity. Nevertheless, they have a promise they need to keep in Washington State, so they set out from Maine in their dilapidated RV. The book plays out as an idiosyncratic travelogue as, along the way, they meet and swap stories with other people bracing for the end, including a nuclear family in Vermont whose kids don't know what's going on, the denizens of a hippie commune in Ohio, and a gun-happy young woman in South Dakota. The story is driven more by character than plot, proving the adage that what truly matters is not what happens but how it happens: Earth can be neither saved nor escaped; all Rodney and Don can do is choose how to spend their final moments. When the motive for their road trip is finally revealed in a bit of tragic backstory, the novel only gets heavier and more poignant. It's both beautiful and bittersweet.
