The Lighthouse at the Edge of the World by J.R. Dawson is such a good story. I rated this story 5 stars because I couldn't put it down for a second and the characters are so well created!

This is a beautiful magical realism adjacent fantasy about grief and loss.

The story takes place in Chicago, and the lighthouse station that helps guide the city's dead to move on. Nera is the adopted daughter of the lighthouse keeper, and was raised at this station, not quite living and not quite dead. She doesn't eat or sleep, just helps around the station, preparing for the day when she will take over keeping the lighthouse from her father. The lighthouse is at risk of going out, and if it does, haunts can enter the station, a form of ghosts infected by a demon who causes a great fire in Chicago about a 100 years ago. Nera must finds a way to keep the lighthouse going, or risk the destruction of the entire city.

Charlie is a human woman living in the city, struggling with her grief for her sister, who died half a year earlier. She gained the ability to see ghosts after her sister dies, and one day she follows a dog singing her sister's incomplete song to the lighthouse, the first living person to do so. Here, Charlie and Nera meet,and Charlie wants nothing more than to find her sister's ghost, while Nera realizes Charlie's music strenghtens the lighthouse. They make a deal, Charlie comes at night to play music, while Nera tries to help her find her sister.

This book ultimately explores grief, and what it means to live. Charlie stopped living after her sister died, and feels an immense survivor's guilt over her death. Meanwhile, Nera has never left the station and has never truly lived, and doesn't know what any of it means. Nera's father was a mortal man before he became the lighthouse keeper, but he too stopped living, he closed himself off from anything except Nera, chose to forget his mortal life, and no longer seeks to know the ghosts that pass through the station even as he guides them.

Charlie's family is a very musical family, and I really liked how this was woven into the book. Many music references, and there's even a little bit of sheet music somewhere for Sam's song, which I found a really cool addition. This also ties in well with the Orpheus & Eurydice inspiration behind the story, even if it's not quite the same.

I found the aspect of the talking dogs really cute and funny, though I do think there was a few dogs too many, which made it difficult to keep track of who is who. Beyond them, there weren't that many important characters, so I had no issue telling who is who with the humans. The talking dogs have the task to care for the ghosts and guide them on, and already did that before Nera's father even built the lighthouse.

The romance was very sweet and emotional, difficult because Nera believes she has to stay at the lighthouse at all times, while Charlie cannot stay there or she would be unable to live, and I like how the romance explored this living vs not living theme.

Both main characters are Jewish, and while Nera is a bit more disconnected from the living world, and the magic elements aren't necessarily informed by religion, it felt like an important aspect of both characters.

I found Nera's father also quite an interesting character, and I enjoyed learning more about his past as the story unfolded. He seems cold and distant, even if he does clearly love Nera, and has completely turned his back on the living world, but he has a lot of depth, and a rather tragic story I enjoyed.

I would highly recommend this book to people who love grounded, modern world fantasy, sapphic romance and explorations of grief

Thank you NetGalley and PanMacmillan/Tor for the ARC!

5/5

A beautiful and layered psychological novel about grief, heartbreak, and finding light in one’s life. Mostly character driven, “The Lighthouse at the Edge of the World” is an essay on finding peace even when everything seems hopeless and it is a struggle to even feel anything other than pain. The novel is almost poetically written, the prose fluid and powerful, laced with both heartwarming and heartbreaking metaphors, managing to bring out sensibilities which involve both the joy and pain of living, and the peace and sadness of death. The setting has minor elements of Greek Mythology mixed with Judaism, and offers a deep spirituality and complexity of faith, and the relationship — or lack of — one has with simply believing.

There are four main characters, but the focus most of the time is on Nera and Charlie. Nera lives in the in-between, with her father, the ferryman of the dead. She is in a state of dullness, of eternal monotony until she has light sparked into her heart and realises that despite her being in touch with something more divine, she is still alive. The first breath, the first tactile feeling, the first taste, the first feeling of warmth — these are new experiences to her, along with the discovery of both friendship and romance. Nera’s black and white world suddenly explodes into colour once Charlie comes in like a wrecking ball. Deeply spiritual and eager to learn, Nera’s character is the heart of the novel, the one who keeps persevering despite the challenges that keep interfering with her progress. Her character arc is beautiful — from a shell to a human, a lovely and deeply personal evolution.

Charlie also finds light through Nera; however, Charlie is a deeply depressed and grieving soul, who even when she strays, she ultimately wants to find her sister’s soul at all costs. Her mission is difficult not only because of the pain she bears in her heart all the time, but also due to external factors which cause her grief to be expressed in a deeply egotistical way. Charlie’s selfishness is however tempered by Nera’s selflessness, and that is beautifully paralleled throughout the entire novel. This characteristic of Charlie’s is also what pushes the plot forward, so it was nice to see the static become dynamic though the intrinsic progression of the stages of human grief.

The ferryman’s story becomes central to the resolution of the novel, and it possesses a very tragic beauty. But sometimes the best stories are the ones which manage to capture our hearts, despite them not being the most full of joy. The ferryman’s life felt exactly like that.

I enjoyed the ending and how ultimately it focused on love, but a healthy and naturally progressive love, encouraging the type of relationships which are both equal in standing and full of faith to one another. From something which started as rather co-dependent, the natural and raw line of evolution of the love story was a sight to see.

Lastly, I haven’t read neither “Before the Coffee Gets Cold” by Toshikazu Kawaguchi nor “Under the Whispering Door” by TJ Klune, so I cannot say how much this novel can be compared to those, however, I found this has similar elements to “Into the Forest of Fireflies Light” and “Natsume's Book of Friends” by Yuki Midorikawa, “Suzume” by Makoto Shinkai, and “The Boy and the Heron” by Hayao Miyazaki. If you have enjoyed any of these works and films, “The Lighthouse at the Edge of the World” is definitely a book you shouldn’t miss out on.

Nera and her father, Harosen, live on the shores of Lake Michigan in the lighthouse. Every night they ferry the recently departed to the veil between this world and the next. Into their lives comes Charlie, a young Chicagoan who, after the loss of her sister, finds herself suddenly able to see the dead, but not the one she really wants to. The Lighthouse at the Edge of the World is a beautifully written study in love, death and grief that's packed with compelling characters.

Thanks to NetGalley, Pan Macmillan and the author for an advance copy.