New ebooks From Canadian Indies
Description
A Toronto Star bestseller * A Globe and Mail bestseller * A New York Post "must-read" book
The Light Between Oceans meets The Language of Flowers in this beautiful debut novel by an acclaimed Canadian children’s author.
Elizabeth's eyes have failed. She can no longer read the books she loves or see the paintings that move her spirit, but her mind remains sharp and music fills the vacancy left by her blindness as she ruminates on the secrets in her family's past.
When her late father's journals are discovered on a shipwrecked boat, she enlists the help of a delinquent teenager, Morgan, who is completing community service at the senior home where Elizabeth lives. An unlikely relationship develops between the two as they work to decipher the books and are drawn into the musty words he penned more than seventy years before as he manned the lighthouse on Porphyry Island.
In the process they come to realize that they are both connected to the isolated island, their lives touched by Elizabeth's enigmatic twin sister Emily and the beautiful but harsh Lake Superior environment. While the discovery of Morgan's connection sheds light onto her own family mysteries, the faded pages of the journals hold more questions than answers for Elizabeth, and threaten the very core of who she is.
Combining an emotional story of human connection with a mystery spanning decades, this tale of family, identity, and art will captivate and resonate with readers.
Awards
- , Ontario Library Service–North (OLSN) Northern Lit Award for English Fiction
Editorial Reviews
“I urge you to read The Light Keeper’s Daughters now. And tell all your reader friends. It is a book, first, for all of us who live here. And then the rest of the world.”
— Thunder Bay Chronicle Journal
“A new kind of love story, a celebration of unlikely human connections. . . . Jean Pendziwol’s storytelling prowess held me fast to the page.”
— Angie Abdou, author of The Bone Cage
“A perfect hammock read for those who love the Brontë sisters and Jodi Picoult in equal measure.”
— <em>Publishers Weekly</em>
“The Lightkeeper’s Daughters is a splendid feat of storytelling that held me happily spellbound from the opening pages to the satisfying final sentence.”
— Nancy Richler, author of The Imposter Bride
“Captured me from the very first page. . . . Crisply rendered. . . . A sensitive and moving examination of the nature of identity, the importance of family, and the possibility of second chances.”
— Heather Young, author of The Lost Girls
“This atmospheric novel tells an intricate story about familial love and deception. . . . VERDICT: Fans of Heather Young and Jojo Moyes might want to look into Jean Pendziwol this summer.”
— <em>Library Journal</em>
“In her first foray into adult fiction, Pendziwol (Once upon a Northern Night, 2013, etc.) has created an intricately satisfying story about love and deception that manages to be both melancholy and exhilarating.A haunting tale of nostalgia and lost chances that is full of last-minute surprises.”
— <em>Kirkus Reviews</em>
“The past and present collide with stunning force in The Lightkeeper’s Daughters. . . . Set against the richly evoked landscape of Lake Superior, The Lightkeeper’s Daughters is a novel about memory, about the inexorable forces of place, and, above all, about family.”
— Michelle Richmond, author of The Year of Fog
“This one is for reading in cottage country – it features Lake Superior after all – and traverses land that Pendziwol, who hails from Thunder Bay, knows well.”
— Toronto Star
“A deeply satisfying look . . . With strong characters and rich in historical details, The Lightkeeper’s Daughters looks carefully at love and identity and the things we do to keep them both safe.”
— <em>Booklist</em>
“A remarkable achievement . . . a story of commitment, identity, and familial loyalty that will leave one in tears. Five out of five stars.”
— <em>New York Journal of Books</em>
