Two Moons

Astronomy, politics, and romance join forces in this novel of Reconstruction era Washington, DC, from bestselling author Thomas Mallon.

It’s the spring of 1877 in Washington, D.C., and at the U.S. Naval Observatory, Hugh Allison’s plan to project an image through time and space takes on urgent life when the mathematically gifted Cynthia May enters his orbit as one of the observatory’s human computers. But the fate of Hugh’s heavenly vision-and of his love affair with Cynthia, a Civil War widow whose beauty has been shadowed by worry and poverty-may be out of his hands, decided instead by an astrologer and by the actions of a dangerously magnetic politician. Masterfully combining historical detail and startling invention, Thomas Mallon gives us a galvanizing story of earthly heartbreak and other-worldly triumph.