# The Stars That Govern Us > A Novel ## Pages - [Sequel](https://jralcyone.com/bonus/):   Blurb Coming Soon: The Fixed Stars of HeavenA literary sequel to The Stars That Govern Us Spanning six decades and three generations, The Fixed Stars of Heaven is a story of courage, memory, and the quiet heroism of those who carry others—sometimes literally—through war, grief, and the sacred labor of healing. At its heart are two men: Pete O’Neill, a stretcher-bearer turned heart surgeon haunted by the men he couldn’t save, and Alec Serafeim, the brilliant surgeon whose steady hands are suddenly taken from him. In 1942, Pete walks into hell to save a wounded boy and becomes a ... Read more - [The Medical Staff](https://jralcyone.com/the-medical-staff/): 🏥 Stirling University Hospital Staff “Beating yourself up is all right if it makes you better, Alec. Beating yourself up is not all right if all it does is cause you to question yourself.” —Dr. Tim Latimer The Stars That Govern Us takes place within Stirling University Hospital, a fictional teaching medical center in Perth, Western Australia. In 1950s Australia, the British tradition remained: “Doctor” was the title for medical physicians, while “Mister” designated full-fledged surgeons. At Stirling, that distinction—and the personalities behind it—matters deeply. ❤️‍🩹 Dr. Timothy Michael Latimer Chief of Cardiology A respected and kind-hearted physician, Tim Latimer ... Read more - [The Serafeim Family](https://jralcyone.com/the-serafeim-family/): 🏠 The Serafeim Family “From the east to western Ind, no jewel is like my Ravenna Rosalind.”—Alec, giving Shakespeare his own flourish Alec’s home life is a source of strength, tension, and emotional depth throughout The Stars That Govern Us. His wife, son, and estranged father form a triad of love, conflict, and memory—a quiet counterweight to the chaos of the operating theatre. 💍 Ravenna Rosalind Serafeim Alec’s wife—better known as Venna—was born 1 June 1927 in Melbourne, Australia. The daughter of a literature professor, Venna met Alec while both were students at the University of Melbourne. Though her parents ... Read more - [Pete O'Neill](https://jralcyone.com/pete-oneill/): 🇮🇪 Peter John O’Neill If Alec was Stirling’s recognized wunderkind and visionary, then Pete was the hospital’s meticulous and steady workhorse; even if they hadn’t been best friends who had cemented their medical school bond through years of toiling in Stirling’s surgical apprenticeship program, everyone agreed they complemented each other perfectly as surgical partners. 🧠 Overview Co-protagonist of The Stars That Govern Us, Pete is Alec’s best friend, surgical partner, and often his moral compass. A decorated war hero turned pediatric heart surgeon, Pete is loyal, grounded, and deeply human. He serves as both foil and friend throughout the novel, ... Read more - [Alec Serafeim](https://jralcyone.com/alec-serafeim/): 🩺 Alec Serafeim “You’re gifted, Alec,” Pete said. “You’re the best surgeon I’ve ever seen.” 🧠 Overview Alec is the main viewpoint character of The Stars That Govern Us. Bold and ambitious, yet deeply insecure, Alec is a gifted young surgeon devoted to saving the lives of as many children as possible. Sensitive, intense, and complicated, he carries both brilliance and baggage in equal measure. 🧬 Backstory Born 1 December 1925 in Perth, Western Australia, Alec Serafeim is the only child of a Greek father and a mother of Greek and Scottish descent. His father, a general surgeon trained at ... Read more - [Acknowledgements](https://jralcyone.com/acknowledgements/): ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This novel was one of the most challenging accomplishments of my life as well as a labor of love, and I can’t thank those who helped me make this idea into a reality enough. First, I am infinitely grateful to Dr. Brandon Beaber, M.D., author of the exceptional Resilience in the Face of Multiple Sclerosis, for reading and commenting on this manuscript. Dr. Beaber is a neurologist who specializes in MS, and he graciously agreed to take time from his busy schedule to read this story and point out any glaring medical errors. Any surviving errors are my own. ... Read more - [Gallery](https://jralcyone.com/gallery/): Gallery Visual storytelling and behind-the-scenes glimpses Welcome to the visual gallery for The Stars That Govern Us.Here you’ll find original artwork inspired by the novel—character portraits, imagined scenes, vintage graphics, and symbolic flourishes that echo the emotional and historical heart of the story. This project began as a way to stay creative while waiting on something out of my hands. It turned into something far more meaningful: a chance to explore the story through color, texture, and visual metaphor. Some pieces are literal. Others are symbolic. All are made with care. Included in this gallery: Character portraits and illustrations Key ... Read more - [Historical Note](https://jralcyone.com/historical-note/): Historical Note Introduction   This novel ranks as one of the most challenging, ambitious, and rewarding accomplishments of my life. Diving headfirst into the esoteric and simultaneously sublime and heartbreaking world of early pediatric congenital heart surgery was thought-provoking and deeply touching. But what stood out most—and what ultimately led me to write this novel—was how the pursuit of the heart-lung machine was such a deeply human story, one marked by both soaring successes and terrible tragedies. Fact and Fiction Like all historical fiction, The Stars That Govern Us blends facts with imagination. Although simplified and dramatized for storytelling purposes, ... Read more - [Bibliography](https://jralcyone.com/bibliography/): Sources A Starting Point for Research The books, journals, and websites listed below proved to be important and invaluable sources for researching and writing the novel. Brownstein, Gabriel. The Open-Heart Club: A Story About Birth and Death and Cardiac Surgery. 1st ed., New York, Public Affairs, 2019. Cade, John F.J. “Lithium Salts in the Treatment of Psychotic Excitement.” Medical Journal of Australia, vol. 2, no. 10, 1949, pp. 349–52. Carlton, Mike. Flagship: The Cruiser HMAS Australia II and the Pacific War on Japan. Melbourne, Penguin Random House Australia, 2017. Doherty, Richard. El Alamein 1942: Turning Point in the Desert. Barnsley. ... Read more - [Chapter 29](https://jralcyone.com/chapter-29/): CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE FOUR MONTHS LATER, ON A warm Friday morning in late September, Alec stopped outside the medical school to feed a macadamia to Cordelia, the black cockatoo. The short Western Australia winter was over, and he was in high spirits as he strolled along the mauve petal-strewn cobblestone pathway beneath the jacarandas, the perfumed air mild, the light cinematically soft. The hospital grounds could never match Kojonup’s magnificent riot of wildflowers, but spring was still a lovely season around Stirling University. Once inside the hospital, Alec bounded upstairs to A2-CTS. Many doctors still avoided A2-CTS whenever they could, but ... Read more - [Chapter 28](https://jralcyone.com/chapter-28/): CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT ONE MONTH LATER, ON THE fourteenth of May, Alec stared into his locker, trying to slow his heart rate, a blend of anticipation, exhilaration, and hope coursing through his veins. In a few hours, if everything proceeded to plan, Alec and Pete would finish what they started and perform their nation’s first successful open-heart surgery using a heart-lung machine on four-year-old Hunter Dillon. The past four weeks had passed in a blur, although they had not been smooth or easy. For Alec, there had been both physical and psychological hurdles to overcome; he had indeed broken his right ... Read more - [Chapter 27](https://jralcyone.com/chapter-27/): CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN NINETY MINUTES LATER, AS THE setting sun reflected off the storm clouds and immersed the ocean in a splendid orange and purple glow, Alec drifted a battered Sphyrna into her slip at the Halcyon Marina. Although he had experienced a genuine sea change and surviving the storm had left him joyful to still be alive, pain radiated up his injured arm, and he was beyond grateful to have the harbormaster rush over to help tie up Sphyrna. Once they had the boat secured to the slip, Alec stepped off. The temperature had dropped into the low sixties, and ... Read more - [Chapter 26](https://jralcyone.com/chapter-26/): CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX A BIT BEFORE MIDDAY, MIND still rolling with questions about his future, Alec performed his usual safety inspection and shoved off from the Halcyon Marina on his sloop, Sphyrna. With the push to build the heart-lung machine, he hadn’t been sailing since a few weeks before Flora’s death. But the chat with Pete had, if not energized Alec, at least nudged him another step or two in the right direction towards trying to overcome his depression by resuming activities that recharged him. And certainly, sailing on the Indian Ocean had traditionally been, along with riding Jarrah and running, ... Read more - [Chapter 25](https://jralcyone.com/chapter-25/): CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE ALEC SURVIVED THE WEEK ON autopilot, riding the usual mild highs and dismal lows that marked life on A2-CTS. Ian Smith died on Tuesday night. Scarlett was well enough to be discharged on Thursday morning. New patients took their places. Alec fell into a rhythm. In the mornings, he performed minor bedside procedures, placing intravenous catheters and chest tubes; in the afternoons, he shadowed Tim on rounds, although Alec rarely offered any counsel or did any teaching. No longer did he leave the house before sunrise and return long after sunset; these days, he arrived at the hospital ... Read more - [Chapter 24](https://jralcyone.com/chapter-24/): CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR THE HOURS CRAWLED BY WITH agonizing slowness as, for the next several days, Alec lay on the settee, feeling like Odysseus—condemned to wander for an eternity, with no hope of finding safe harbor and internal peace. Although he was exhausted and wished for nothing more than sleep, his beleaguered brain would not allow him the luxury, his mind acting like a perpetual motion machine, his thoughts twirling and twisting themselves into hopelessly contorted helices. Murderer. Blunderer. Head case. Damaged goods. Everyone tried to help. Dimitrios adopted the tough love approach, urging Alec to pry himself off the settee ... Read more - [Chapter 23](https://jralcyone.com/chapter-23/): CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE MANIC DEPRESSION WAS, AS ITS name suggested, a disorder of extremes. And of those extremes, Alec always considered mania the headliner. By lowering inhibitions, thwarting impulse control, and causing delusive and grandiose thinking, mania transformed normal individuals into people who acted out, and even, in the severest and most extreme cases, into criminals. Mania is what transformed Alec from a brilliant and charismatic medical student into an unrecognizable and agitated young man with feral eyes and a racing brain; mania is what led to a broken jaw and what had landed him in a locked room at King ... Read more - [Chapter 22](https://jralcyone.com/chapter-22/): CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO ON TUESDAY MORNING, THREE DAYS after his panic attack in the theater, Alec, dressed in his best dark suit, eyes hidden behind his Wayfarers, stood beneath a cypress tree in Karrakatta Cemetery, listening as a Catholic priest read from the Bible. “I am already being poured out like a libation,” the elderly whitehaired priest intoned. The harsh light of the late morning sun cast sharp shadows over his red and distinctly Irish countenance. “And the time of my departure is at hand. I have competed well; I have finished the race; I have kept the faith. From now ... Read more - [Chapter 21](https://jralcyone.com/chapter-21/): CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE WITHOUT THE USUAL MARKERS, ALEC wasn’t certain how many miles he ran. But he stayed out for over two hours and finally fell asleep in his running clothes sometime after three. When his alarm clock rang, he was in the deepest stages of sleep. The rising sun cast his office in orange as he sat, groggy and disoriented, his mouth tasting like copper, and his face still crusted with salt. For a moment, all was normal; he was merely tired after an interminable day’s work. Then, all at once, he slammed back into his body, the memory of ... Read more - [Chapter 20](https://jralcyone.com/chapter-20/): CHAPTER TWENTY SHAKEN AND DISTRAUGHT, MASK STILL hanging from his neck and blood-flecked surgical booties over his shoes, Alec stopped outside theater one and leaned his head back against the cinderblock wall. One moment, he was on the precipice of conquering the world, of performing his country’s first cardiac bypass surgery. Now— They had been so close. So tantalizingly close. They had been on the threshold of success, of bringing a machine that could save countless children’s lives to Australia. He released a shuddering and deeply tortured sigh. Here he was feeling sorry for himself when he should have headed ... Read more - [Chapter 19](https://jralcyone.com/chapter-19/): CHAPTER NINETEEN JOSHUA GARLAND, THE YOUNG SURGEON, Alec had chosen to assist in the surgery, was pacing the locker room when Alec arrived at the hospital. As usual, the space was far too warm, the unpleasant odors of mildew, tape, perspiration, unwashed clothing, ammonia, and bleach deepening and fermenting in the moist conditions, compounding the stress Alec was experiencing. “Did Gabe give you the binder to review last night?” Alec sensed the dark energy radiating from his person, but he kept his voice cool and collected. It would not do for him to sound or seem tired and anxious. He ... Read more - [Chapter 18](https://jralcyone.com/chapter-18/): CHAPTER EIGHTEEN RIGHT ABOUT THE TIME THE sun was cresting the house, Alec pulled the Alfa into the driveway. He opened the passenger door, and Red jumped out and shook himself, the little brass identification tag on his green collar jingling. At the sound of the car door, Venna and Brose appeared on the porch. Always eager to greet Alec, Brose, dressed in his school kit, hurried down the steps. “Daddy.” The boy halted in his tracks, jaw dropping open, eyes wide. “You bought me a dog?” “Alec?” Venna tilted her head and touched the neckline of her housedress. “First, ... Read more - [Chapter 17](https://jralcyone.com/chapter-17/): CHAPTER SEVENTEEN FOR WHAT WOULD NOT BE the last time in Alec’s life, he tried to be all things to everyone, sitting vigil at Pete’s bedside while reviewing documents for Flora’s surgery and fielding last-minute inquiries from Gabe. Just after nine, a little over four hours after entering the recovery room, Pete stirred. Alec put aside his reading—he wasn’t making much headway anyway—and took to whittling, working on a small wooden block over a plastic basin. He hadn’t decided yet what he was crafting. A horse? A duck? A boat? He stared at the wood, shaping it in his mind, ... Read more - [Chapter 16](https://jralcyone.com/chapter-16/): CHAPTER SIXTEEN AFTER A QUICK TRIP UPSTAIRS to talk to the patient’s family and thirty minutes under an icy stream in Stirling’s decrepit shower room, Alec had cooled off literally and figuratively. Numb and shivering, he wrapped a threadbare towel around his narrow waist and plodded back to his locker. To his surprise, his father was hurriedly undressing, his forehead imprinted with worry lines. “Hand me a set of theater greens, will you?” Dimitrios tossed his trousers into his locker and accepted the scrub suit from Alec. “Pete has peritonitis.” “Dammit!” Alec slapped his thigh. Peritonitis was a dangerous and ... Read more - [Chapter 15](https://jralcyone.com/chapter-15/): CHAPTER FIFTEEN PETE REFUSED TO SPEAK TO Alec during afternoon rounds and dodged him entirely on Wednesday. Finally, on Thursday morning, with a bit over twenty-four hours remaining before Flora’s surgery, Alec cornered Pete in the locker room. They were scheduled to repair coarctation of the aorta in a seven-year-old boy, and Alec had arrived soon enough that Pete hadn’t scurried off to the theater. “I know you’ve been avoiding me,” Alec said. “But I must know so, if necessary, I can line up another surgeon. Are you planning to assist tomorrow?” Pete unknotted his tie, spun the combination on ... Read more - [Chapter 14](https://jralcyone.com/chapter-14/): CHAPTER FOURTEEN TUESDAY HAD BEEN ONE OF those days for Alec. The morning began with an emergency page to A2-CTS. Half-dressed—he had been changing for surgery—he had raced upstairs and burst onto the ward to find his patient in cardiac tamponade. Using the scissors and wire cutters that hung from each surgical case’s bed, he had torn open the skin sutures, sliced the wires holding together the sternum, and scooped out the large clot that had caused the child’s blood pressure to plummet. Successfully averting that crisis, he was washing his hands when he received another page—a different patient had ... Read more - [Chapter 13](https://jralcyone.com/chapter-13/): CHAPTER THIRTEEN WITH THE EARTHY SCENT OF timothy hay tickling his nose, Alec slouched against the rough wooden fence of the sheep’s paddock, alternating between watching the stable’s tall double door and watching Pete limp between the seven animals, offering them handfuls of corn and scratches under their chins. Given their already punishing surgical schedule, the only time they could assemble everyone to operate on the lambs was at night, resulting in some twenty-hour days. But pushing the pace had been worth it—Tim Latimer had presented the successful results of their trial to the IRB, and a decision on whether ... Read more - [Chapter 12](https://jralcyone.com/chapter-12/): CHAPTER TWELVE A FEW MINUTES BEFORE THREE, Alec maneuvered the ute and the trailer into Perth’s central business district. Worried Pete was developing yet another urinary tract infection, Alec had let his friend sleep on the drive back to the city. But now Alec needed help. “C’mon, Pete.” Alec poked his friend’s shoulder. “Wake up. We’re almost there. Put the permits in order.” Pete grumbled and rubbed his nose but duly located the paperwork allowing them to stable seven sheep on the university grounds. Alec pulled up to a black iron gate with an attached concrete gatehouse and motioned to ... Read more - [Chapter 11](https://jralcyone.com/chapter-11/): CHAPTER ELEVEN BRIGHT AND EARLY ON SUNDAY morning, Alec jogged across the way to Pete’s house. Sunlight poured through the kitchen windows, and if the cacophony arising from behind the door was any sign, it seemed impossible anyone could be asleep; nonetheless, Alec knocked softly. “Hi, Alec.” “Matilda?” Alec arched a brow. Pete and Kate had given all six of their girls’ names starting with the letter “M,” and because they had all inherited their father’s red hair, freckles, and blue eyes, Alec could never tell them apart. “Molly,” she said, already having perfected rolling her eyes in a way ... Read more - [Chapter 10](https://jralcyone.com/chapter-10/): CHAPTER TEN LESS THAN A WEEK LATER, on the evening of Friday, the twenty-fourth of February, Alec and Pete gathered in their basement lab to meet Henry Miller and Tim Latimer and present the newly assembled heart-lung machine. The windowless white room with the cracked tile floor where they had assembled the machine was spare and austere—certainly, a far cry from the sophisticated research spaces Alec had seen in America at places like the Mayo Clinic and Columbia. “I’m sorry, Gabe couldn’t join us tonight.” Alec fretted with his notecards as Tim took a seat on one of the wooden ... Read more - [Chapter 9](https://jralcyone.com/chapter-9/): CHAPTER NINE ON SATURDAY AFTERNOON, PLEASANTLY FATIGUED and wind-burned, Alec made his way back up the beach after several hours out sailing with Brose. Although his son was small for his age, Alec had learned basic seamanship when he was five, and he figured even if Brose was still too small to handle the sheets and lines, sailing taught a child invaluable lessons and instilled self-confidence. For today’s lesson, Alec had taught his son how to operate the tiller. Mastering a sailboat’s steering mechanism is difficult, and Brose had been afraid to take the tiller even with Alec sitting right ... Read more - [Chapter 8](https://jralcyone.com/chapter-8/): CHAPTER EIGHT A LITTLE OVER A MONTH later, Alec sat at A2-CTS’s central command desk, scribbling orders and glancing at the clock. Today was a big day. After obtaining Venna’s blessing to go ahead with the heart-lung machine project, he had moved forward straightaway, ringing the Sigmamotor Company in America the very next morning and purchasing two of their T-6S pumps. Those pumps now awaited his inspection—if he could ever finish his paperwork. Sighing, he forced himself to focus. A new cycle of trainees had been assigned to A2-CTS, and Alec didn’t like leaving anything to chance with his fragile ... Read more - [Chapter 7](https://jralcyone.com/chapter-7/): CHAPTER SEVEN THE NEXT TWO WEEKS PASSED in a blur as Alec juggled clinical duties, surgeries, and overseeing the new trainees assigned to A2-CTS. But even as he drowned in work, his conscience gnawed at him, intruding into his thoughts during lulls in the theater, his daily runs on the beach, and even when he peeked in on Brose after arriving home after midnight. If a man could do more, shouldn’t he do more? Over and over, he mulled that question. Finally, on Friday, the thirteenth of January, a day that lived up to its star-crossed repute, with three children ... Read more - [Chapter 6](https://jralcyone.com/chapter-6/): CHAPTER SIX TRUTH BE TOLD, ALEC COULD think of many reasons why building a heart-lung machine was a bad idea, and as he ambled along the cobblestone path connecting the hospital to the university’s fledgling medical school, he ticked off some of those reasons. Their center was the only one in Western Australia performing children’s heart surgery, and his existing obligations already made it difficult to spend time with his family. Further, building a bypass machine wasn’t something a surgeon could do alone, and Stirling didn’t have a flourishing, or any, really, research arm to support such a project. Alec ... Read more - [Chapter 5](https://jralcyone.com/chapter-5/): CHAPTER FIVE ONCE PETE DEPARTED, ALEC HEADED back into A2-CTS’s lounge where he recoiled in surprise to see his father, a general surgeon, sitting at the little wooden table, perusing a chart. Perhaps all father and son relationships are complicated, but Dimitrios “The Captain” Serafeim—he had earned his sobriquet serving as a surgeon in the Royal Australian Navy—had not raised Alec, and the two rarely saw eye to eye, lending their relationship a fraught and multifarious character. For his part, Alec loved his father, but he found his old man baffling and more than a bit peculiar. And Dimitrios was ... Read more - [Chapter 4](https://jralcyone.com/chapter-4/): CHAPTER FOUR THE FIRST MONDAY IN JANUARY was “Changeover Day” at Stirling Hospital—everyone in the extensive training hierarchy was promoted. Selected registrars became associates. Senior house officers became registrars. Interns became the new junior house officers. And the new medical school graduates became the latest crop of interns. The hospital’s senior consultants, like Henry and Tim, would be busy all day giving speeches and undertaking countless administrative tasks; by tomorrow morning, Alec and Pete would be busy superintending staff newly assigned to A2-CTS, balancing educating the younger doctors with protecting fragile children. But for now, at least, Alec and the ... Read more - [Chapter 3](https://jralcyone.com/chapter-3/): CHAPTER THREE OVER THE YEARS, ALEC HAD tried, without success, to recall the first time his mind descended into a thought helix—his expression, taken from Watson and Crick’s recent discovery of DNA, for the ever-tightening corkscrews of obsessive, invasive, and hurtling thoughts that sometimes consumed his entire being and consciousness. While he could never identify with exactness when the spirals began, he could say with certainty he was experiencing one of his thought helixes as he made his way back to his wife’s car with Venna and Brose. You did something heroic. Something a good father would do. Look at ... Read more - [Chapter 2](https://jralcyone.com/chapter-2/): CHAPTER TWO AS ALEC EXPECTED, PETE WAS waiting near Alpha Block’s nursing station, tapping his cane against the floor. Wordlessly, they exited, passing the central desk—Tim Latimer had headed elsewhere—and walked to the lifts. With the time now after six on New Year’s Eve, the hospital had emptied almost completely, and they had the lift car to themselves. “You should know better than to become attached to patients, Alec.” Pete punched the button for the ground floor, and the car lurched, causing him to clutch the wall for balance. “Especially a kid with a big VSD.” Alec was well-acquainted with ... Read more - [Chapter 1](https://jralcyone.com/chapter-1/): CHAPTER ONE WHERE THE HEART BEAT, THERE was life. Where the heart ceased to beat, there was no life. Beneath the searing lights of Stirling University Hospital’s theater one, Alexandros Serafeim peered into his patient’s chest cavity as her glistening heart contracted and relaxed, contracted and relaxed. He had just completed a treacherous waltz with this heart, timing his movements to match the organ’s tempo as he defused the cardiac equivalent of a time bomb. Likening the ligation of a patent ductus arteriosus to deactivating a bomb might seem hyperbolic to an outsider, but one need only handle the friable ... Read more - [Author's Note](https://jralcyone.com/authornote/): AUTHOR’S NOTE ALTHOUGH WRITTEN BY AN AMERICAN, the story you’re about to read is set in a fictionalized version of Perth, Western Australia. The story adopts American spelling and grammatical conventions (such as double quotation marks for dialogue and periods after abbreviations), but for flavor and authenticity, the author has used many Australian words in place of their more common American counterparts, especially in dialogue, such as boot for a car’s trunk, or serviette instead of a napkin, or operating theater versus operating room. American readers should also note that Western Australia followed British conventions in how doctors and nurses ... Read more - [Order a Copy](https://jralcyone.com/order-a-copy/): Order a Copy of the Novel A limited number of signed paperback copies of The Stars That Govern Us are available for direct order. 📖 $25.00 — includes shipping within the United States✍️ Each book is personally autographed by the author📦 Please allow 2–3 business days for a response and order confirmation. (On occasion, shipping may be delayed 7-10 days if I am out of town.) Quantities are limited. If you’d like to reserve a copy, please email thegreenheron1980@gmail.com. You’ll receive a confirmation with payment details and estimated shipping time. Thank you for supporting independent authors—it means more than you ... Read more - [About the Author](https://jralcyone.com/about-the-author/): About the Author J.R. Alcyone is the pen name of an Ohio-based author, bird nerd, and historical fiction enthusiast. Her debut novel, The Stars That Govern Us, was named the Historical Fiction Company’s 2021 Book of the Year — which surprised her almost as much as writing a novel in the first place. By day, Jen works as a lemon law attorney. By night (and most weekends), she’s either writing, photographing birds, or wandering battlefields with a camera and a strong opinion about General Meade. A self-taught writer with degrees in history, philosophy, and law, Jen’s work blends research with ... Read more - [Art & Extras](https://jralcyone.com/art-extras/): Art & Extras Behind the Story of The Stars That Govern Us Dive into the imagery, historical research, and heartfelt thanks that helped bring this novel to life. 🔍 Historical Note Uncover the real-world breakthroughs and postwar settings that inspired the novel. Read the Historical Note → 📚 Bibliography A curated list of books, articles, and archival material used in the research process. View the Bibliography →   💌 Acknowledgements To the people who made this journey possible. Read the Acknowledgements → 🎨 Gallery of Art Explore illustrations and visualizations of characters, scenes, and concepts. View the Gallery → 🎵 ... Read more - [Characters](https://jralcyone.com/characters/): Meet the Characters Behind every heartbeat is a story.These are the people who shaped Alec Serafeim’s world—and who, in turn, were shaped by him. 🌟 Alec Serafeim 🌟 Pete O’Neill 🌟 The Serafeim Family 🌟The Medical Staff - [Read the Story](https://jralcyone.com/read-the-story/): Read the Story The stars above us govern our conditions. ―William Shakespeare, King Lear The Stars That Govern Us is presented here in full, chapter by chapter, with illustrations, historical notes, and companion extras. Each chapter stands on its own—but together, they trace a journey of courage, loss, and heart. Chapters Author’s Note Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter ... Read more - [Home](https://jralcyone.com/): On the ragged edge of the world, two young surgeons attempt the impossible. Welcome to the world of The Stars That Govern Us Sometimes a hero is an ordinary person who chooses to pursue the extraordinary. Set in 1950s Western Australia, The Stars That Govern Us follows Alec Serafeim and Pete O’Neill—two unlikely partners determined to build a working heart-lung bypass machine. In an era when open-heart surgery was a fantasy, their story blends medical innovation, personal healing, and the quiet power of friendship. This site presents the 2021 Historical Fiction Company’s “Book of the Year” in full, accompanied by ... Read more [comment]: # (Generated by Hostinger Tools Plugin)