The Lightkeeper's Daughters: A Novel

by Jean E. Pendziwol

Overview

“A remarkable achievement . . . a story of commitment, identity, and familial loyalty that will leave one in tears. Five out of five stars.”—New York Journal of Books

In her mesmerizing adult debut set on the shores of the Great Lakes, critically acclaimed children’s author Jean E. Pendziwol delivers an affecting story of family, identity, and art involving a decades-old mystery.

Elizabeth, whose failing eyes have confined her to a senior home, is reflecting on her life, looking to unravel the mysteries of her family, especially that of her beautiful, enigmatic twin sister Emily. Sixteen-year-old Morgan has lived in foster care since she was a young child, bouncing from home to home, searching for one where she belongs.

When the journals belonging to Elizabeth’s late father are discovered after a tragic accident, she enlists the help of Morgan, who is completing community service at the senior home, to decipher the faded words. With a shared love of art and music, this unlikely pair are drawn deep into a world far removed – to Porphyry Island on Lake Superior, where Elizabeth’s father and his wife served as lighthouse keepers and raised their young family during the First and Second World Wars.

As a complex web of secrets unravels, Elizabeth and Morgan realize that their fates are connected to each other and to the isolated island, in this vividly written novel about the lengths people will go for love.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062572103
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	07/24/2018
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	336
Sales rank:	272,760
Product dimensions:	5.30(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Jean E. Pendziwol was born in Thunder Bay, on the shores of Lake Superior, and spent much of her childhood aboard her family’s sailboat, exploring the islands of the inland sea. She is the author of nine books for children. She was shortlisted for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Children’s Literature and the TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award for her picture book, Once Upon a Northern Night, illustrated by Isabelle Arsenault. She lives in the shadow of Ontario’s Nor’Wester Mountains.

Editorial Reviews

An elegant adult fiction debut.

Fort Worth Star-Telegram

Deeply satisfying.... 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.

Booklist

Seamlessly weaves between past and present. . . . I loved this story! From the characters to the setting, each aspect is perfect. THE LIGHTKEEPER’S DAUGHTERS is one of the best books that I’ve read this year. . . . beautifully written.

Fresh Fiction

A remarkable achievement . . . a story of commitment, identity, and familial loyalty that will leave one in tears. Five out of five stars.

New York Journal of Books

If you loved The Light Between Oceans, check out The Lightkeeper’s Daughters.”

Book Bub

Deeply satisfying.... 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.

Booklist

05/29/2017
YA author Pendziwol (Once Upon a Northern Light) pins her first story for adults to the “fortunes of chance” that bring mixed blessings to the last family manning a lighthouse on the Ontario side of Lake Superior. The narrative nimbly tacks between the past and present of Elizabeth Livingstone, a near-blind expat raised on Porphyry Island in the 1920s and ’30s. Since recovering her father’s old day logs, returned by a constable investigating a shipwreck, she’s eager to get to the bottom of the tragedy that forced her and her twin sister to leave the island 60 years before. Her failing eyesight prevents her from diving in until “fortune” pairs her with Morgan Fletcher, a foster teen sent to do community service at her retirement home. Game on. Cagey and drawn to bad company, Morgan turns out to be on an ancestral quest of her own and proves the perfect Watson. This is a perfect hammock read for those who love the Brontë sisters and Jodi Picoult in equal measure. Agent: Jenny Bent, Bent Agency. (July)

Publishers Weekly

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.” — Kirkus Reviews

“A perfect hammock read for those who love the Brontë sisters and Jodi Picoult in equal measure.” — Publishers Weekly

“Deeply satisfying.... 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.” — Booklist

“An elderly woman and a delinquent teen form an unlikely bond as they uncover the journal entries of a man who oversaw a remote Lake Superior lighthouse nearly a century before.” — Coastal Living, “50 Best Books for the Beach This Summer”

A remarkable achievement . . . a story of commitment, identity, and familial loyalty that will leave one in tears. Five out of five stars.” — New York Journal of Books

“An elegant adult fiction debut.” — Fort Worth Star-Telegram

“Seamlessly weaves between past and present. . . . I loved this story! From the characters to the setting, each aspect is perfect. THE LIGHTKEEPER’S DAUGHTERS is one of the best books that I’ve read this year. . . . beautifully written.” — Fresh Fiction

“If you loved The Light Between Oceans, check out The Lightkeeper’s Daughters.” — BookBub

From the Publisher

If you loved The Light Between Oceans, check out The Lightkeeper’s Daughters.”

BookBub

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

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

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

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

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

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

An elderly woman and a delinquent teen form an unlikely bond as they uncover the journal entries of a man who oversaw a remote Lake Superior lighthouse nearly a century before.

Coastal Living

Morgan Fletcher is performing community service at the senior center, penance for tagging it with graffiti art. She’s matched up with Elizabeth Livingstone, an elderly woman whose mind is still sharp, even though her eyesight has failed her. Elizabeth has just been sent some journals belonging to her late father, but she needs Morgan’s help to read them. As Elizabeth uncovers details from her past with each page, Morgan becomes more determined to solve the mysteries in her own life.

New York Post

06/15/2017
Children's author Pendziwol's adult debut is about two women: elderly Elizabeth, who has lost her eyesight and yearns to know more about her family's past, and teenage orphan Morgan, who is performing community service at Elizabeth's assisted-living facility and gets roped into helping Elizabeth. When Elizabeth's late father's journals are discovered after an accident, Morgan reads them aloud to her. The 70-year-old tales of his time as the local lighthouse keeper on an island on Lake Superior unravel the clouded mysteries in the family. Both women will learn that their histories have always been entwined in ways neither could have realized. This atmospheric novel tells an intricate story about familial love and deception. While the story at the novel's core may lean toward the melodramatic, readers will be drawn in by the intergenerational relationship between Elizabeth and Morgan as they discover their pasts in each other. VERDICT Fans of Heather Young and Jojo Moyes might want to look into Jean Pendziwol this summer. [See Prepub Alert, 2/16/17.]—Mara Dabrishus, Ursuline Coll. Lib., Pepper Pike, OH

Library Journal

2017-04-18
A decades-old mystery is revisited as an elderly woman shares the story of her childhood with a troubled teen.Teenage foster child Morgan Fletcher has been sentenced to completing a term of community service at the senior center she tagged with graffiti art. On her first day scraping off spray paint, Morgan meets Elizabeth Livingstone, an elderly woman who's still sharp as a tack but is almost completely blind. A boat belonging to Elizabeth's older brother, Charlie, has just been found, empty and foundering on Lake Superior. The boat was discovered near Porphyry Island, a small island in the Thunder Bay District of Ontario, where she and her siblings were raised. Their father was the lighthouse keeper on Porphyry Island for many years during the early 20th century. Although Charlie is missing, the authorities have recovered journals that belonged to their dead father, Andrew, and those books have just arrived for Elizabeth. Unable to read her father's words on her own, Elizabeth looks to the delinquent teenager repairing the fence outside her window. Morgan is quickly drawn in by Elizabeth and her history, spending many hours reading to the old lady instead of hanging around with her deadbeat boyfriend. As Morgan helps Elizabeth solve the puzzles of her past, the two women, young and old, form an unlikely bond that helps Morgan unearth many mysteries about her own life. With each tidbit that Elizabeth discovers from her father's writings, Morgan becomes more desperate for answers about her own past. 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.

Kirkus Reviews