The Lightkeeper's Daughters: A Novel - Softcover

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.

Though her mind is still sharp, Elizabeth’s bones have aged and her eyes have failed. No longer able to linger over her beloved books or gaze at the paintings that move her spirit, she fills her days at the retirement home with music and with memories of her family, especially of her beloved twin sister, Emily. When her late father’s journals are discovered after a tragic accident, she seizes the opportunity to piece together the mysteries of her childhood. 

With the help of Morgan, a delinquent teenager performing community service at the home, Elizabeth delves into the diaries—a journey through time that brings the two women closer together. Each entry draws these unlikely friends deep into a world far removed—to Porphyry Island on Lake Superior, where Elizabeth’s father served as lighthouse keeper and raised his young family in the years before and during World War II. 

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 ways that are at once heartbreaking and healing.

Both sweeping and intimate, The Lightkeeper’s Daughters takes readers on an enthralling journey to an unforgettable place.

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.