The Lightkeeper's Daughters

With the haunting atmosphere and emotional power of The Language of Flowers, Orphan Train, and The Light Between Oceans, critically acclaimed children's author Jean E. Pendziwol's adult debut is an affecting story of family, identity, and art that involves a decades-old mystery.

Though her mind is still sharp, Elizabeth's eyes have failed. No longer able to linger over her beloved books or gaze at the paintings that move her spirit, she fills the void with music and memories of her family, especially her beloved twin sister, Emily. When her late father's journals are discovered after an accident, the past suddenly becomes all too present.

With the help of Morgan, a delinquent teenager performing community service at her senior home, Elizabeth goes through the diaries, a journey through time that brings the two women closer together. Entry by entry, these unlikely friends are drawn deep into a world far removed from their own, to Porphyry Island on Lake Superior, where Elizabeth's father manned the lighthouse and raised his young family 70 years before.

As the words on those musty pages come alive, Elizabeth and Morgan begin to realize that their fates are connected to the isolated island in ways they never dreamed. While the discovery of Morgan's connection sheds light onto her own family mysteries, the faded pages of the journals will shake the foundation of everything Elizabeth thinks she knows and bring the secrets of the past into the light.

Genre: Historical

"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

"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

"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

"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