The Exlusion Principle

Astronomer Avey Fleming and his wife Kate strive to keep their feet on the ground while reaching for the stars in The Exclusion Principle, the latest work by veteran novelist and poet Leona Gom. When the pair travel to Mauna Kea, Hawaii, so that Avey can pursue his research, the sinews that hold their tenuous marriage together threaten to snap. ... The Exclusion Principle is an entertaining read, in which the quotidian world of marriage and the exotic field of astronomy mesh.

There isn't anything better than a novel that completely immerses a reader in an exotic locale. Leona Gom's The Exclusion Principle quickly does so as she follows the lives of a desperate astronomer, Avey Fleming, whose research for the next Earth-like planet takes him and his wife Kate from their frosty home in Edmonton, Alberta to the tropics of Hilo, Hawaii ... Alternating narration between Avey and Kate, Gom deftly takes the reader into the minds of a neurotic workaholic husband and a beautiful under-achieving wife. ... a novel about the displacement of lives and the importance of finding home again.

The Exclusion Principle is filled with fascinating tidbits on astrophysics, and yet it is not overly intellectual for the common reader. Gom carefully balances her knowledge of celestial bodies without compromising any of her comedic or absorbing literary ability.

"Leona Gom's novel contrasts science with human impulse:
Building a mystery"
By Alex Browne

"The Exclusion Principle" demonstrates Gom's keen eye for telling detail and inventive fleshing-out of thorough research. It's a study in contrast between the ethereal reaches of science and the all-too-worldly impulses of human beings ... Gom has researched both intriguing locations and the whole field of astronomy, including the very real search for extrasolar planets.

Her imagination was sparked a decade ago after her nephew, Brad — who actually works with the James Clerk Maxwell telescope on Mount Kea — gave her a guided tour. "The setting of Hawaii became like another character — I went back several times ... It's a field that's incredibly competitive."