Inspired by Charles Babbage, who believes that his Difference Engine can calculate the longitude of a solar eclipse, astronomer Selena Cott invents a technique to photograph it and embarks on a dangerous journey into the American Southwest.

Charles Babbage was an English genius of legendary eccentricity. He invented the cowcatcher, the ophthalmoscope, and the “penny post.” He was an expert lock picker, he wrote a ballet, he pursued a vendetta against London organ-grinders that made him the laughingstock of Europe. And all his life he was in desperate need of enormous sums of money to build his fabled reasoning machine, the Difference Engine, the first digital computer in history. To publicize his Engine, Babbage sponsors a private astronomical expedition—a party of four men and one remarkable woman—who will set out from Washington City and travel by wagon train two thousand miles west, beyond the last known outposts of civilization. Their ostensible purpose is to observe a total eclipse of the sun predicted by Babbage’s computer, and to photograph it with the newly invented camera of Louis Daguerre. The actual purpose, however… Suffice it to say that in Shooting the Sun nothing is what it seems, eclipses have minds of their own, and even the best computer cannot predict treachery, greed, and the fickle passions of the human heart.

An adaptation of the Pueblo Indian myth that explains how the spirit of the Lord of the Sun was brought to the world of men.

A New York Times Notable Book of the Year Winner of the LAMBDA Literary Award for Lesbian Fiction Named a Best Book of 2016 by NPR, Entertainment Weekly, Buzzfeed, Bustle, San Francisco Chronicle, The Root, BookRiot, Kirkus Reviews, NYLON, Amazon, WBUR's "On Point", the Barnes & Noble Review, and Amazon (Fiction & Literature) Finalist for the NYPL Young Lions Fiction Award and the Center for Fiction's First Novel Prize Selected for the Grand Prix Litteraire of the Association of Caribbean Writers Longlisted for the ALA Over the Rainbow Award Longlisted for the Dublin Literary Award In this radiant, highly anticipated debut, a cast of unforgettable women battle for independence while a maelstrom of change threatens their Jamaican village. Capturing the distinct rhythms of Jamaican life and dialect, Nicole Dennis- Benn pens a tender hymn to a world hidden among pristine beaches and the wide expanse of turquoise seas. At an opulent resort in Montego Bay, Margot hustles to send her younger sister, Thandi, to school. Taught as a girl to trade her sexuality for survival, Margot is ruthlessly determined to shield Thandi from the same fate. When plans for a new hotel threaten their village, Margot sees not only an opportunity for her own financial independence but also perhaps a chance to admit a shocking secret: her forbidden love for another woman. As they face the impending destruction of their community, each woman—fighting to balance the burdens she shoulders with the freedom she craves—must confront long-hidden scars. From a much-heralded new writer, Here Comes the Sun offers a dramatic glimpse into a vibrant, passionate world most outsiders see simply as paradise.