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Christina Koning
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Variable Stars Paperback – May 24, 2011

by Christina Koning (Author)
4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars 8 ratings
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This is a story of love and astronomy; music and silence; secrets and truth-telling; of world-changing discoveries, and unrequited desire. Moving from York in the 1780s to Regency Bath, and then to Hanover in the 1840s, it concerns the lives of three people-all astronomers. There is Caroline, torn between her passion for music and her passion for the stars; John, deaf from childhood, whose extraordinary mathematical gifts afford him perspectives not available to others; and Edward, friend and mentor to Caroline and to John, who must conceal his innermost feelings from them both. All three find fulfilment in the heavens for the set- backs and disappointments they encounter on earth. All three, in time, come to know the truth about variable stars.
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  1. Print length
    402 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Arbuthnot Books
  4. Publication date
    May 24, 2011
  5. Dimensions
    5 x 0.89 x 8 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0956521444
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0956521446
  8. See all details
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Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Arbuthnot Books (May 24, 2011)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 402 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0956521444
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0956521446
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 15.4 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5 x 0.89 x 8 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars 8 ratings

About the author

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Christina Koning

Christina Koning

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Christina Koning is an award-winning novelist, journalist and academic. She was born in Kuala Belait, Borneo, and spent her early childhood in Venezuela and Jamaica. After coming to England, she was educated at the University of Cambridge, Newcastle College of Art, and the University of Edinburgh, eventually settling in south east London.

Her first novel, 'A Mild Suicide' (Methuen, 1992), set in Edinburgh in 1977, was short-listed for the David Higham Prize for Fiction. 'Undiscovered Country' (Viking, 1997), won the Encore Award for the best second novel and was long-listed for the Orange Prize for Fiction. Set in the 1950s Venezuela of her early childhood, the novel explored aspects of colonialism -- a theme dealt with elsewhere in Koning's fiction, notably in 'Fabulous Time' (Viking, 2000), which is partly set in China during the 1911 revolution and was awarded a Society of Authors' Travelling Scholarship, and 'The Dark Tower' (Arbuthnot, 2010), set in South Africa during the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879. Other novels include Variable Stars (Arbuthnot, 2011), about the 18th-century astronomer Caroline Herschel.

Line of Sight (Arbuthnot, 2014), was the first in a series of detective stories set during the late 1920s in the aftermath of the First World War. Game of Chance (Arbuthnot, 2015), set in 1929, continues the Blind Detective series, and was followed by Time of Flight (Arbuthnot, 2016), Out of Shot (Arbuthnot, 2017), End of Term (Arbuthnot, 2018) and Twist of Fate (Arbuthnot, 2021). All six novels, and a seventh book, Murder in Dublin (A&B, 2023) have been re-published in a new format and with new titles, by Allison & Busby.

Koning has worked extensively as a travel writer and literary critic – notably as Books Editor for The Times and Cosmopolitan, and on BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour - and was three times a judge for the Society of Authors' McKitterick Prize, and Chair of Judges for Girton College's Ridding Reading Prize for several years -- mostly recently in 2023.

As an academic, she has taught Creative Writing at the University of Oxford and University of London, and was the 2014-15 Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Newnham College, University of Cambridge. She has taught at Cambridge University's Institute of Continuing Education at Madingley Hall and was Editor of Collected, the Royal Literary Fund's magazine from 2016 to 2021.

Christina Koning has two grown-up children and now lives in Cambridge.

Customer reviews

4.2 out of 5 stars
4.2 out of 5
8 global ratings

Top review from the United States

John Russell Yamamoto
5.0 out of 5 stars A well-researched and thought-provoking historical novel
Reviewed in the United States on May 3, 2013
I am not normally one for historical fiction; I tend to prefer my history and my fiction clearly separate. In this case, though, the historical context functions as a convincing context for the more speculative aspects of the book, and the line between what "really" happened and what *might* have happened is generally (and, I think, intentionally) clearly drawn throughout. The novel focuses on the 18th-century astronomer William Herschel's sister Caroline, who probably deserves as much credit as her brother, but (as the _Guardian_ reviewer puts it) suffers "the indignities of playing second fiddle to genius". This human drama played out against the backdrop of the stars is well worth a read.
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Top reviews from other countries

J. F. James
5.0 out of 5 stars Star light star bright
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 13, 2011
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'Variable Stars' tells the story of three 18thC/19thC astronomers, whose lives were as full of emotional complexity, love, desire, disappointment and excitement, as any of the more obviously bright stars of their day - a Byron or a Blake. I had heard of William Herschel, but I hadn't realised his sister Caroline made many astronomical discoveries in her own right, initially while assisting him; Christina Koning portrays the reality of sitting out in the cold, night after night, fascinated but frozen, with all the household responsibilities still to attend to the next morning, from jugging hares to juggling the household accounts. Caroline is attracted to intelligent and agreeable fellow astronomer, Mr Pigott, and we wonder, with her, if he will return her affections - but only when we hear the story from his point of view, and then from that of the romantic figure of John Goodricke, mathematical genius and deaf-mute, do we discover what passions, hardships and responsibilities are entwined in all their lives, and those of their friends and families.
Koning has a gift for bringing to life her setting and characters - whether through the language we recognise from Jane Austen, the formality of address, the small domestic details, or the larger questions of the struggle to understand the world we live in - the meanings of patterns of brightness in stars, and the equally variable fortunes of those of us on earth. It's an intelligent and absorbing story - I wanted to read on to the end to find out what happened, but didn't want the experience to end!
4 people found this helpful
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Book -devourer
5.0 out of 5 stars Insightful observation
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 20, 2012
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This accomplished novel explores the hidden relationships between a group of key astronomers of the late eighteenth, nineteenth century revealed through their observations on their work.
The writing is beautiful and reflects the cool, restrained style of the period, and of scientific study itself. It contrives to be both formal and very human, delineating a surprisingly intimate story of passions, fulfilled, repressed or sublimated. The reader learns much from what is not said: just as the existence of planets and satellites are inferred through changes in t'he stars, so the reader learns about one character thorough observations of another. Caroline Henschel lives as a satellite to the star astronomy, her brother and her knowledge of the man she loves has to be gleaned from her brother's correspondance and conversation, a restriction echoed in the other love affairs in the narrative. Homosexuality, gender, mutism and economic dependence prevent the main protagonists from speaking their hearts. To read this novel is to enter another time, to enter the domestic reality of eighteenth century life and to glimpse the infinite reaches of space. The variability of the stars is matched by the constancy of the astronomers dedicated to their mapping.
This is a really good novel and deserves a wide audience.
2 people found this helpful
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Patricia Ferguson
5.0 out of 5 stars intelligent Romance
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 26, 2011
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Variable Stars makes brilliant use of some of the more usual props of Romantic fiction - an almost Cinderella-like scene of fleeting happiness at a ball was wonderfully intense and vivid. At the same time Christina Koning writes with clarity and vigour about Science, about the meaning of discovery, and what makes some of us long to understand the mechanics of the world we live in. The tone is absolutely right all the way through, eighteenth-century sensibilities gracefully observed, real people saying real things to one another, doing the shopping as well as constructing twenty-foot telescopes, and the several interleaved stories reach one beautiful, natural conclusion. I didn't want to put this book down until I'd finished it, and had to shed a few tears at the end. An absolute treat in every way.
2 people found this helpful
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Mrs. Sma Beament
2.0 out of 5 stars Have not read it yet
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 14, 2013
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Do not know what to say because I have not read this book yet. Have a pile of books to read.
One person found this helpful
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