As they look to the stars, what are they missing back home? The best of Helen Kane exists in space. If she doesn't go back up, she'll be consigned to a lesser version of herself on a planet that has also seen better days. Helen is an experienced astronaut with a NASA position and a struggling grown-up daughter who needs her but when, at fifty-three, she is offered a place on the training programme for the first mission to Mars, the most realistic simulation ever, she cannot refuse a last chance to walk among the stars.

Her fellow astronauts are Sergei, a gruff Russian whose teenage sons are less mysterious to him than they'd like to think; and Yoshi, kind and focused, who wants to prove himself worthy of the wife he has drifted ever further from. The three will be enclosed for months in a tiny craft, while outside their loved ones negotiate everyday life. How far will the wanderers travel in the pursuit of endeavour, and what will it be like to come home?

'Phenomenal. A transcendent journey into the mysteries of space and self. Howrey's expansive vision left me awestruck' Ruth Ozeki, author of A Tale for the Time Being