100,000+ Books, Games & Puzzles in-stock 🇳🇿

Fast overnight NZ delivery 🚀 Don't forget Father's Day is this Sunday 📅

The Pull of the Stars

3.95 goodreads logo

Ratings/reviews counts are updated frequently.

Check link for latest rating.
( 91,773 ratings, 11,516 reviews)
Book Hero Magic crafted this summary to help describe this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Summary
Set in Dublin, 1918, during a devastating flu pandemic compounded by war, The Pull of the Stars follows Nurse Julia Power, who works in an overstretched city hospital ward for pregnant women quarantined with the illness. Over three intense days, Julia's life intertwines with the determined Doctor Kathleen Lynn and young volunteer Bridie Sweeney. Together, they face harrowing challenges, losing patients while ushering new life into a world shadowed by fear. Emma Donoghue crafts a moving and deeply human story of compassion, resilience, love, and loss amid crisis.
Read More
Format: Paperback / softback
$2499
AVAILABLE WITH SUPPLIER Ships from our Auckland warehouse within 4-6 weeks

Found a better price? Request a price match

Book Hero Magic created this recommendation. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! IS THIS YOUR NEXT READ?

This book is ideal for readers of historical fiction who appreciate richly drawn characters and stories exploring themes of love, loss, and human resilience. Fans of emotionally compelling medical dramas and those interested in historical pandemics will find it especially gripping.

Book Hero thinking about your next read

Dublin, 1918: three days in a maternity ward at the height of the Great Flu. A small world of work, risk, death, and unlooked-for love, by the bestselling author of The Wonder and Room.

Dublin, 1918: three days in a maternity ward at the height of the Great Flu. A small world of work, risk, death, and unlooked-for love, by the bestselling author of The Wonder and Room.

Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

The Sunday Times bestseller and Richard & Judy Book Club Pick, from the acclaimed author of Room.

'Moving, gripping and dazzlingly written' - Stylist

Dublin, 1918. In a country doubly ravaged by war and disease, Nurse Julia Power works at an understaffed hospital in the city centre, where expectant mothers who have come down with an unfamiliar flu are quarantined together. Into Julia's regimented world step two outsiders: Doctor Kathleen Lynn, on the run from the police, and a young volunteer helper, Bridie Sweeney.

In the darkness and intensity of this tiny ward, over the course of three days, these women change each other's lives in unexpected ways. They lose patients to this baffling pandemic, but they also shepherd new life into a fearful world. With tireless tenderness and humanity, carers and mothers alike somehow do their impossible work.

In The Pull of the Stars, Emma Donoghue tells an unforgettable and deeply moving story of love and loss.

Guardian, Cosmopolitan and Telegraph's 'Books of the Year'

Book Hero Magic summarised reviews for this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! HOW HAS THIS BEEN REVIEWED?

Reviews praise the novel as a stunning, immersive, and prescient work. Emily St. John Mandel calls it "a visceral, harrowing, and revelatory vision of life, death, and love in a time of pandemic." The Daily Telegraph hails it as "extraordinarily prescient," while the Evening Standard describes it as "about as moving and absorbing as it gets." Praised for its careful prose and emotional depth, it has been likened to an episode of Call The Midwife set in a pandemic, and recognised for its beautiful, fast-paced storytelling by Stylist and others.

Book Hero reading reviews

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9781529046199

Publisher: Pan Macmillan

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 29 April 2021

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: Picador

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 19.0mm

Width: 129.0mm

Height: 199.0mm

Weight: 208g

Pages: 304

About the Author

Born in Dublin in 1969, Emma Donoghue is an Irish emigrant twice over: she spent eight years in Cambridge, England, before moving to Canada's London, Ontario. She is best known for her novels, which range from the historical (The Wonder, Slammerkin, Life Mask, The Sealed Letter) to the contemporary (Akin, Stir-Fry, Hood, Landing). Her international bestseller Room was a New York Times Best Book of 2010 and was a finalist for the Man Booker, Commonwealth, and Orange Prizes; her screen adaptation, directed by Lenny Abrahamson, was nominated for four Academy Awards.

Also by Emma Donoghue

View all
  • Furies
    A fun and fearless anthology of feminist tales, by sixteen bestselling, award-winning writers. 'Wonderful . . . all killer, no filler' Red Magazine 'Dazzling stories, as inventive as they are inspiring' Daily Mirror 'Where power and feminist rage meet' Stylist BANSHEE. DRAGON. TYGRESS. SHE-DEVIL. HUSSY. SIREN. WENCH. HARRIDAN. MUCKRAKER. SPITFIRE. VITUPERATOR. CHURAIL. TERMAGANT. FURY. WARRIOR. VIRAGO. For centuries past, and...
    Paperback
    $5200
    Available
    Ships in 2-3 weeks
  • The Paris Express
    Europe is racing towards the future. Steam travel is the emblem of progress; industry and invention are creating ever greater wealth and ever greater deprivation; and on an autumn day in 1895, a young woman determined to make her mark on history boards the Granville to Paris Express with a bomb. With her travel the train crew and her fellow...
    Paperback
    $3799
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • The Paris Express
    From the Sunday Times bestselling author of Room and The Pull of the Stars, Emma Donoghue takes readers on a thrilling ride through a simmering turn-of-the-century Paris on the edge of a dazzling future. ‘Ratchets up the pace until it’s hurtling along as fast as the train itself’ – Alice Winn, author of In Memoriam ‘Riveting’ – The Washington Post...
    Paperback
    $2599
    Elsewhere:
    $2800
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • Haven
    ‘Beautiful and timely’ - Sarah Moss, author of Summerwater ‘Everything a novel should be: compassionate, unpredictable, and questioning. Haven is Donoghue at her strange, unsettling best.’ - Maggie O’Farrell, author of Hamnet ‘Book of the Year’ pick in The Irish Times, The Guardian, The Irish Post, RTÉ and The Times. In seventh-century Ireland, a priest has a dream telling him...
    Paperback
    $2499
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • Haven
    Three men vow to leave the world behind them. They set out in a small boat for an island their leader has seen in a dream, with only faith to guide them. What they find is the extraordinary island now known as Skellig Michael. Haven, Emma Donoghue's gripping and moving novel, has her trademark psychological intensity – but this story...
    Paperback
    $2499
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • Learned By Heart
    The heartbreaking story of the love of two women—Anne Lister, the real-life inspiration behind Gentleman Jack, and her first love, Eliza Raine—from the bestselling author of Room and The Wonder. 'A rich and spellbinding 19th-century story of forbidden love' - Independent 'Donoghue evokes a relationship that is convincing and exquisitely touching.' - The Guardian In 1805, at a boarding school...
    Paperback
    $2499
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • Learned By Heart
    Adding to the already moving, richly told and gripping collection of historical fiction from Emma Donoghue, Learned By Heart is the breathtaking story of two young girls on the margins of life, forging a connection that will last a lifetime. In 1805, at boarding school in York, two fourteen-year-olds meet - an orphan heiress, sent from India to England at...
    Paperback
    $3799
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • Room
    CELEBRATING 50 YEARS OF PICADOR BOOKS Scared is what you're feeling. Brave is what you're doing. It's Jack's birthday, and he's excited about turning five. Jack lives with his Ma in Room, which has a locked door and a skylight, and measures 11 feet by 11 feet. He loves watching TV, and the cartoon characters he calls friends, but he...
    Paperback
    $2799
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • The Wonder
    Now a major Netflix film from the makers of Normal People and Room, starring Florence Pugh. 'An old-school page turner with crackling intensity' - Stephen King 'Powerful, compulsively readable' - The Irish Times Eleven-year-old Anna O'Donnell stops eating, but remains miraculously alive and well. A nurse, sent to investigate whether she is a fraud, meets a journalist hungry for a...
    Paperback
    $2799
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • The Wonder
    Now a major film from the makers of Normal People and Room, starring Florence Pugh and streaming on Netflix. 'An old-school page turner with crackling intensity' - Stephen King 'Powerful, compulsively readable' - Irish Times An eleven-year-old girl stops eating, but remains miraculously alive and well. A nurse, sent to investigate whether she is a fraud, meets a journalist hungry...
    Paperback
    $2799
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • Room
    The story of a mother, her son, a locked room, and the outside world. Jack is five and, like any little boy, excited at the prospect of presents and cake. He's looking forward to telling his friends it's his birthday, too. But although Jack is a normal child in many ways—loving, funny, bright, full of energy and questions—his upbringing is...
    Paperback
    Sold Out
  • Slammerkin
    Set in London and Monmouth in the late 1700s, Slammerkin is an extraordinary novel about Mary Saunders, the young daughter of a poor seamstress. Mary hungers greedily for fine clothes and ribbons, as people of her class do for food and warmth. It's a hunger that lures her into prostitution at the age of thirteen. Mary is thrown out by...
    Paperback
    Sold Out

More from Historical Fiction

View all
  • The Parisian Chapter
    From the New York Times bestselling author of The Paris Library and The Librarians of Rue de Picardie comes a charming and cinematic novel following a young woman from Montana who lands a job in the American Library in Paris, where she discovers the power of storytelling and writes her own Parisian chapter.'Stirring and rich with detail' New York Times...
    Paperback
    $2999
    Elsewhere:
    $3499
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • Inferno
    AD 60. Nero Claudius Caesar is Emperor. He is feared for his temper. He is known to be intoxicated by the power he wields. And why not? The Roman Empire stretches from the wilds of Britain to the deserts of Parthia. Nero is god of all he surveys. Yet dangerous traitors lie close at hand. Generals commanding legions. Senators whispering...
    Paperback
    $3100
    Elsewhere:
    $3800
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • Circle of Days
    From the master of epic fiction comes the deeply human story of one of the world's greatest mysteries: the building of Stonehenge. A FLINT MINER WITH A GIFT Seft, a talented flint miner, walks the Great Plain in the high summer heat, to witness the rituals that signal the start of a new year. He is there to trade his...
    Hardback
    $4499
    Elsewhere:
    $6000
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • The Soldier's Daughter
    The heart-stopping new blockbuster by the bestselling author of The Fallen Woman. Violet Nash has grown up in the shadows of her father Charlie's shattered dreams. It's been years since he walked away from the battlefields of France, a WWI hero but his heart in tatters, only to see it broken all over again in the worst way possible. In...
    Paperback
    $2999
    Elsewhere:
    $3800
    (1)
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • The Girl with the Suitcase
    The enthralling new novel from the 10-million-copy, No. 1 bestselling author. London 1941 When Mary meets a glamorous stranger named Elizabeth, she realises their lives couldn't be more different. But when an air raid forces them to take shelter underground, Mary's life is set to change forever. After waking up in hospital, injured but alive, the nurse mistakes her for...
    Paperback
    $2999
    Elsewhere:
    $3800
    (1)
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • The Lost Bookshop
    Evie Woods' stunning new novel The Story Collector is available now. The Echo of Old Books meets The Lost Apothecary in this evocative and charming novel full of mystery and secrets. ‘The thing about books,’ she said ‘is that they help you to imagine a life bigger and better than you could ever dream of.’ On a quiet street in...
    Paperback
    $2200
    Elsewhere:
    $2500
    (2)
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • All the Diamonds in Paris
    Kristin Harmel is firmly in the top echelon of WW2 storytellers - HEATHER MORRIS A master storyteller - SANTA MONTEFIORE The best at sweeping historical drama - KELLY HARMS A dazzling diamond of a novel - HAZEL GAYNOR * Paris, 1942: Anabel Martinet is a jewel thief, descended from a family that has spent centuries stealing from the unkind and...
    Paperback
    $2999
    Elsewhere:
    $3799
    (1)
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • On Sale
    19% off
    The Listeners
    ‘By turns a beautiful love story, a fascinating glimpse into the horrors of history and a haunting tale of loyalty and courage. A marvel of storytelling’ CHRIS WHITAKER, bestselling author of All the Colours of the Dark The Avallon Hotel offers unrivalled luxury in the wild Appalachian Mountains, its curative sweetwater washing away the troubles of high society. June 'Hoss'...
    Paperback
    $2900
    Elsewhere:
    $3799
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • The Song of Achilles
    The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller is a brilliantly crafted retelling of the ancient Greek epic of Achilles and Patroclus, transforming the classical myth into a profoundly moving love story. Set against the richly depicted backdrop of Greece during the heroically tumultuous age, the narrative follows Patroclus, an awkward and exiled young prince, who is taken to the court...
    Paperback
    $2100
    Elsewhere:
    $3999
    (3)
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • Buy to Win
    Mythos
    Mythos by Stephen Fry is a compelling retelling of the classic Greek myths, reimagined with a wit and elegance that only Fry can deliver. This volume transports the reader to a world where mortals intertwine with the divine, and the timeless tales unfold in a spellbinding narrative that captures the imagination. From the cosmogony—the birth of the cosmos—to the exploits...
    Paperback
    $2200
    Elsewhere:
    $3000
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • The Four Winds
    Kristin Hannah is a classic storyteller and The Four Winds sees her at the top of her game - Matt Haig Powerful and compelling - Delia Owens, number one international bestselling author of Where the Crawdads Sing A story of love, family, unbreakable bonds, bravery and hope. I loved this book so much! - Christy Lefteri, bestselling author of The...
    Paperback
    $2000
    Elsewhere:
    $2499
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • The Lost Apothecary
    Hidden in the depths of eighteenth-century London, a secret apothecary shop caters to an unusual kind of clientele. Women across the city whisper of a mysterious figure named Nella who sells well-disguised poisons to use against the oppressive men in their lives. But the apothecary's fate is jeopardised when her newest patron, a precocious twelve-year-old, makes a fatal mistake, sparking...
    Paperback
    $2500
    Elsewhere:
    $2799
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow

Why buy from us?

Book Hero is not a chain store or big box retailer. We're an independent 100% NZ-owned business on a mission to help more Kiwis rediscover a love of books and reading!

Service & Delivery

Service & Delivery

Our warehouse in Auckland holds over 100,000 books, toys, board games and puzzles in-stock so you're not waiting for your order to arrive from overseas.

Auckland Bookstore

Auckland Bookstore

We're primarily an online store, but for your convenience you can pick up your order for free from our bookstore, which is right next door to our warehouse in Hobsonville.

Our Gifting Service

Our Gifting Service

Books make wonderful thoughtful gifts and we're here to help with gift-wrapping and cards. We can even send your gift directly to your loved one.