The Lightkeeper's Daughters

Author: Jean E. Pendziwol
Genre: Historical Fiction, Canadian
Type: Hardcover
Pages: 320
Source: Local Public Library
Publisher: Harper Collins
First Published: July 4, 2017
Opening Lines: "The black Lab is aging. His arthritic legs stiffly pick their way along the well-worn path, stepping carefully over roots and carrying his stout form between the trunks of spruce and poplar."

Book Description from GoodReads: 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—a past that suddenly becomes all too present when her late father's journals are found amid the ruins of an old shipwreck.

With the help of Morgan, a delinquent teenager performing community service, 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 seventy years before.

As the words on these 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 hold more questions than answers for Elizabeth, and threaten the very core of who she is.

My Rating: 2.5 stars

My Review: This atmospheric read brings readers to the north end of Lake Superior - a beautiful part of Canada that is described in great detail for the reader. This is a story about a long-hidden secret surrounding the daughters of a lighthouse keeper which is told via two different time frames.

This book received a lot of praise from other readers and had an interesting premise but didn't live up to its hype for me. Lake Superior herself was my favourite character while the human characters felt contrived as did the coincidences within the slow-moving plot that felt too convenient to be believable. I'm sad to say I skimmed much of the last half of the book when the plot became unnecessarily complicated and convoluted leading to a revelation that was lackluster.

Unfortunately, I never felt absorbed into the plot or its characters. My review goes against the general grain of reviews so while this wasn't a good pick for me, I think this may be better for readers who enjoyed The Light Between Oceans.