The Promise of Stardust (58 page)

© DiGiovanni Photography

P
RISCILLE
S
IBLEY
is a neonatal intensive care nurse who lives in New Jersey with her husband and three teenage sons. Her short fiction has appeared in
MiPOesias
and her poetry in
The Shine Journal
. She is a member of Backspace Writer's Forum and Liberty State Fiction Writers.
The Promise of Stardust
is her first novel.

O
VER THE COURSE OF WRITING
The Promise of Stardust
I needed to do research to learn about Matt and Elle's world. Here are a few things that I found particularly helpful and revelatory:

Books

Bizony, Piers.
The Space Shuttle: Celebrating Thirty Years of NASA's First Space Plane
. Zenith Press, 2011.

Devorkin, David, and Robert Smith.
Hubble: Imaging Space and Time
. National Geographic, 2011.

Giffords, Gabrielle, and Mark Kelly with Jeffrey Zaslow.
Gabby: A Story of Courage and Hope
. New York: Scribner, 2011.

Kübler-Ross, Elisabeth.
On Death and Dying
, New York: MacMillan Publishing Co. Inc., 1969.

Rees, Martin, ed.
Universe: The Definitive Visual Guide
. Covent Garden Books, 2009.

Sawyer-Fay, Rebecca, and Lynn Karlin.
Gardens Maine Style, Act II
, Down East Books, 2008.

DVDs

Cruise, Tom, James Arnold, Michael J. Bloomfield.
Space Station 3D
. DVD. Directed by Toni Myers. IMAX and Lockheed Martin Corporation in cooperation with NASA, 2002.

Neeson, Liam, Meredith Eder, Pierre de Lespinois, Fran Lo Cascio, Stephen Jay Schwartz.
Inside the Space Station
. DVD. Directed by Pierre de Lespinois. Family Home Entertainment, 2000.

M
ATT LOVED TO WATCH
E
LLE
stargaze and, in the story, she took a fictional ride on
Atlantis
. In reality, the Space Shuttle program flew 135 missions between April 1981 and July 2011. The shuttle fleet consisted of six orbiters:
Enterprise
,
Columbia
,
Challenger
,
Discovery
,
Atlantis
, and
Endeavour
. Two flights ended in disasters and the loss of their crews:
Challenger
STS-51L and
Columbia
STS-107, but after each tragedy brave men and women returned to space.

Here are a few highlights from the Space Shuttle timeline:

August 12, 1977

First Space Shuttle test flight:
Enterprise
rode aboard an airplane to test its flight and landing capabilities.

April 12, 1981

Columbia
made its first launch carrying astronauts Bob Crippen and John Young.

April 4, 1983

Challenger
conducted its first spacewalk.

June 18, 1983

Sally Ride was the first American woman in space.

February 7, 1984

Astronaut Bruce McCandless tested a device that allowed untethered spacewalks.

January 28, 1986

Challenger
disaster: a short seventy-two seconds after takeoff, O rings on the rocket boosters failed and exploded. It was the twenty-fifth Space Shuttle mission. Seven astronauts including teacher Christa McAuliffe, a civilian, were killed.

September 29, 1988

The Space Shuttle
Discovery
made the first return to space after a major disaster. Seventeen years later, it would once again launch into space after a terrible tragedy.

April 24, 1990

The Hubble Telescope was launched by
Discovery
.

For more information about Hubble visit:
http://hubblesite.org/

December 2, 1993

Endeavour
returned to Hubble to replace its flawed vision.

June 29, 1995

Space Shuttle
Atlantis
docked with the Space Station Mir.

October 29, 1998

John Glen, seventy-seven, the first American to orbit the earth, flew again aboard the Space Shuttle
Discovery
.

December 4, 1998

The International Space Station began with
Endeavour
's delivery of the first U.S. component,
Unity
.

February 1, 2003

The
Columbia
disaster occurred when it broke up during reentry. Insulating foam fell off the external tanks during liftoff and damaged the heat-resistant panels on the left wing of the orbiter. On reentry, the hole caused the ship to rip apart. All seven aboard were killed. The program was grounded during the accident investigation.

January 2004

George W. Bush called for the retirement of the Space Shuttle program. Although he called for a new program to take us back to the moon, that program was later canceled.

July 26, 2005

Discovery
once again made an intrepid return to space.

February 24, 2011

Discovery
made its last flight after thirty-nine missions, two of which followed disasters.

May 16, 2011

Endeavour
made its last flight, docking with the International Space Station.

July 21, 2011

Atlantis
made the final Space Shuttle flight, the program's one hundred thirty-fifth mission.

B
EFORE TRYING TO WATCH
a meteor light show, get away from city lights. Find an open field or a beach. Moonlight can also block out a good showing. If the meteor shower conflicts with a full or gibbous moon, watch before the moon rises or after it sets. Take along a blanket to lie on and another to wrap yourself in. A reclining lawn chair is a good idea. Even a late-summer night can be chilly. And in the winter, bring warm clothes and a thermos with hot chocolate. You're looking for fire in the sky. Have a late-night picnic. Have music. Have fun!

(Listed below are the usual peak dates for viewing.)

January 3, 4—Quadrantids meteor shower. About forty meteors per hour. Look around the constellation Boötes (northern sky).

April 21, 22—Lyrids meteor shower. About twenty meteors per hour and are known to leave dust trails that are visible for several seconds. Look at the constellation Lyra (visible in the northern hemisphere, almost overhead, spring through autumn).

May 5, 6—Eta Aquarids meteor shower. This is a light shower with only about ten meteors per hour. The best viewing will be after midnight. Look for the constellation Aquarius in the east, far away from city lights.

July 28, 29—Southern Delta Aquarids meteor shower. Look toward Aquarius again. The best viewing is usually after midnight.

August 12, 13—Perseids meteor shower produces about sixty meteors per hour during its peak. The debris is from the comet Swift-Tuttle. Look for the constellation Perseus (toward the northeast).

October 21, 22—Orionids meteor shower. The Orionids produces about twenty meteors per hour. The best viewing will be after midnight in the east.

November 17, 18—Leonids meteor shower. One of the better light shows. In the northern hemisphere, look for it coming from the constellation Leo after midnight.

December 13–15—Geminids meteor shower. This is considered one of the best showers and produces up to sixty multicolored meteors per hour at its peak. Look toward the east and toward Gemini after midnight.

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THE PROMISE OF STARDUST

“A literate and incandescent Nicholas Sparks-like love story complicated by intense moral and ethical questions.”

—Kirkus

“There's nothing like devastating moral quandary to spark reading, and this trade paperback original would be a great book club choice.”

—Library Journal

“In this brave novel,
The Promise of Stardust
, [the members of] a family making choices about death with dignity find themselves in uncomfortable opposition. Author Priscille Sibley explores with compassion and insight, how political and personal needs align and shift as a husband, a mother, and a father navigate the needs of a family member in crisis.”

—Randy Susan Meyers, author of
The Murderer's Daughters

“Sibley explores an ethical dilemma in a way that might lead you to question your own beliefs. Woven with elegance through a twenty-year love story, the novel takes numerous twists and turns that will keep you turning the pages.”

—Catherine McKenzie, internationally bestselling author of
Spin, Arranged
, and
Forgotten

“Sibley's debut dissects the ethics of a patient's right to die with dignity…. The journey is heartrending and tragic.”

—Publishers Weekly

“
The Promise of Stardust
is a riveting story of a family ripped apart by an impossible choice. You will live these characters' lives like they are your own, and race through the pages of this engrossing, deeply moving novel.”

—Kristina Riggle, author of
Keepsake

Cover design by Mumtaz Mustafa

Cover photograph © by plainpicture/Gilles Rigoulet

Author photograph © by DiGiovanni Photography

This book is a work of fiction. References to real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locales are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity, and are used fictitiously. All other characters, and all incidents and dialogue, are drawn from the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real.

P.S.™ is a trademark of HarperCollins Publishers.

THE PROMISE OF STARDUST
. Copyright © 2013 by Priscille Marcille Sibley. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

FIRST EDITION

ISBN 978-0-06-219417-6

EPUB Edition © FEBRUARY 2013 ISBN 9780062194183

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