[2] Set in New Zealand's South Island in 1866, the novel follows Walter Moody, a prospector who travels to the West Coast settlement of Hokitika to make his fortune on the goldfields.

Instead, he stumbles into a tense meeting between twelve local men, and is drawn into a complex mystery involving a series of unsolved crimes.

[6] The story begins with one of the book's protagonists, Walter Moody, arriving in the smoking room of the Crown Hotel after having encountered a horrific sight on his ship to Hokitika.

There, he meets the twelve men who become the other protagonists of the book: Te Rau Tauwhare (a Māori greenstone hunter), Charlie Frost (a banker), Edgar Clinch (an hotelier), Benjamin Lowenthal (a newspaperman), Cowell Devlin (a chaplain), Sook Yongsheng (a hatter), Aubert Gascoigne (a justice's clerk), Joseph Pritchard (a chemist), Thomas Balfour (a shipping agent), Harald Nilssen (a commission merchant), Quee Long (a goldsmith), and Dick Mannering (a goldfields magnate).

The twelve men inform Walter Moody about the mysterious events that have happened leading up to the current night, from their different perspectives.

Some two weeks previously, Crosbie Wells, a little-known hermit, was found dead in his cabin by a politician named Alistair Lauderback on his way into town.

She and Gascoigne discovered the next day that hundreds of pounds' worth of gold has been sewn into the lining of her dress by an unknown person.

The council has met to discuss these and subsequent events, and the man who appears to be at the centre of all these occurrences is Francis Carver, a violent and scarred man who captained the Godspeed, the ship in which Moody came to Hokitika, and who, nine months previously in Dunedin, had cheated Lauderback out of that same ship using the false name of Francis Crosbie Wells.

After hearing and considering the tales of the other twelve men, Moody tells them his own story: he believes he saw the ghost of Emery Staines on the Godspeed.

Crosbie had originally travelled to New Zealand in search of their father, and had attempted to contact Lauderback for years to no response.

Te Rau Tauwhare brings him back to town to get medical attention, where he is reunited with Anna Wetherell, who has mysteriously suffered a parallel injury.

On the ship to New Zealand, Anna meets Staines for the first time (although he does not reveal his name) as he points to the mythical nature of the albatrosses flying overhead.

It is implied that the murder was committed by Te Rau Tauwhare, using a greenstone patu, as vengeance for his old friend Crosbie Wells.

[8]"I like to think of the zodiac as having a lot in common with the Greek pantheon: less of a thing to be believed in, and more of a repository of cultural knowledge and history that is archetypal, and mythic, and responsive to close study.

The conventional characteristics associated with each sign serve as a skeleton upon which Catton builds to create fully fledged characters.

[12] The novel is divided into twelve sections, each shorter than the one before, to mimic the moon waning through its lunar cycle, and bringing historical relevance to the astrology referenced throughout this novel.

"[14] Aged 14, Catton and her father went on a tandem trip from their home in Christchurch over Arthur's Pass to the West Coast.

[16] The Luminaries makes use of numerous real-life settings in 1866 Hokitika, including the West Coast Times office, Revell and Wharf Streets, and the former courthouse on Sewell Street; after its publication the town offered Luminaries walking tours and Hokitika Museum published a book of historical photos captioned with passages from the novel.

"[18] Catton returned to Hokitika in March 2014, and gave a question and answer session at the Regent Theatre with her British publisher, Max Porter, in front of a sell-out crowd.

[18] She deliberately chose Te Rau Tauwhare's surname based on its meaning "House of Years", which reflected the book's astrological themes.

[28] Jonathan Barnes wrote in Literary Review that Catton's work "revitalises the Victorian novel... while also slyly interrogating its assumptions and techniques."

[30] Michael Morrissey went further in a review that was later described by Ross Brighton as a "snide, derisive shrug" without "much in the way of actual critical content".

[18] The Luminaries was the top seller on the New Zealand adult fiction list for the entire year, and translation rights were sold in 26 languages.