This was a book that my daughter was super excited to read. I will note that this was not an easy book for an 8 year old to read on her own, so we read it together.

Gabe is working a summer job as a tour guide at a “haunted” lighthouse. called the Gibralter Point Lighthouse. The story goes that the lighthouse keeper, Keeper Strand, and his teenage daughter Rebecca, fell off the catwalk around the lightroom one night while tending the light, and died. The myth suggests they were murdered and that the daughter haunts the lighthouse to this day. Gabe hams it up a bit to keep the tourists engaged. By all accounts he does a good job, and the tourists all leave satisfactorily spooked. One day, there’s a girl there who wants to speak with him after the tour. Her name is Callie and she writes about haunted locations. Turns out she wants to see the Gibralter Point Lighthouse specifically, because she’s related to Rebecca Strand. She and Gabe meet up with his best friend Yuri and grab some lunch.

Throughout all of his ghost tours of the Lighthouse, Gabe used Rebecca Strand’s name so often, he woke Rebecca’s ghost. She was able to talk to him about what really happened, and how a ghost named Nicholas Viker is the one who pushed them off the lighthouse. She and her father didn’t fall. They were murdered by a ghost. And about how lighthouse keepers were part of a secret society where the light from the lighthouse kept ghosts away from the cities. Most importantly, some keepers even had a special amber lens called a ghostlight. Like the bright lighthouse beam, it could kill ghosts, even those that had consumed other ghosts to strengthen themselves, but the true power is that the lens frees the ghosts inside. But her father’s ghostlight is missing and Rebecca needs Gabe’s help to find it and to defeat Viker, thus freeing her father whom Viker had eaten.

There is a lot going on in this story and I feel the author vividly and intriguingly described everything so well, that as I read it aloud to my daughter, we were both able to easily visualize everything. Viker is a scary guy, and his form has become warped after centuries of consuming other ghosts for energy. I was worried this would be too scary for my 8 year old but she was super into it! Watching Callie, Yuri, and Gabe form a friendship, and then a team, was great. Rebecca Strand joined their group and fit in easily, creating one very smart ghostlight hunting team. They worked well together, got into scrapes, and pulled off some interesting capers. They had to hunt through the history of the island, of different buildings, old families, and other lighthouse keepers…it was very exciting.

My daughter and I were kept on the edge of our seats constantly, and she never wanted to stop reading.

I hope this is the beginning of a series, because something about that ending has me wanting more…

***ARC courtesy of the publisher via Netgalley

What worked:
I always appreciate a great hook, and chapter one of this book describes the “murder” of a lighthouse keeper and his daughter in the early 1800’s. The plot jumps almost two centuries ahead as a mystery-adventure evolves with ghosts taking on major roles. Gabe is able to see and speak with Rebecca, the ghost of a character dying in the first chapter, and he’s determined to help free her father from the ruthless ghost named Viker that devoured him. The key to stopping this spirit is a ghostlight that went missing so Gabe and his friends must collect clues to locate the amber lens before Viker becomes too powerful to stop. He’s consuming other ghosts to build strength, and the living characters are unaware of his ultimate plans.
Strong emotions are shared to create subplots. Gabe’s father left the family in the prior year but was then hit by a car and killed. Gabe is left with unresolved feelings of love and anger toward him that continue to pop up. Seeing his father’s ghost doesn’t make things better. Rebecca obviously has strong emotions due to her own death and her father’s fate after being ingested by Viker. Gabe’s best friend Yuri’s family recently moved from Russia, but not all members of his family have adjusted well to the changes. Unrest with Yuri’s family creates additional angst for his character. Another friend named Callie is the most stable character, but even she experiences concerns due to family expectations. Becoming a journalist does not offer the money she can make if she pursues a career in dentistry like her parents and other family members.
The most entertaining aspect of the book is the main plot itself. Trying to locate the lost ghostlight to stop an evil spirit is straightforward, but the author effectively adds twists and turns to complicate matters. You can imagine the difficulty of finding a lens lost in the sand two hundred years ago, but Gabe learns the identity of various characters that create a trail of clues to follow. These characters are now ghosts, so readers aren’t sure what to expect when he meets them. Dangers await at every turn as Viker seems to pop up every time Gabe and his friends make progress. My greatest anticipation is with Rebecca’s character. Gabe is able to see and hear her when she clasps his hand, but that act transfers some of his energy to her. Will this become a problem in the long run? Gabe starts to view Rebecca as a girlfriend, but he’s shocked at times when she reveals a wave of anger from within. Is she a sincere ghost trying to stop Viker, or is there a malevolent spirit inside her waiting to erupt? Several times, the plot appears to build to a climax only to take unexpected turns. Rest assured, the story finally reaches an exciting, suspenseful conclusion that leaves the door open for a possible sequel.
What didn’t work as well:
The trail of clues is unrealistic at times. The ghostlight is originally lost on a beach, and its ownership passes to random people over the course of decades. Somehow, the teens are able to research in their spare time to find names, articles, and locations to follow the history of the lens’s past. Finding clues seems unusually easy when you consider what the characters are actually doing. However, ignore any concerns and simply enjoy the exciting adventure created by the author.
The Final Verdict:
Using the ghostlight to bring peace to lost souls. Obviously, this book tells a ghost story, but it’s more about the perilous exploits of the characters than creating a spooky, eerie atmosphere. Overall, it’s a highly entertaining adventure, and I highly recommend you give it a shot.

This is story reaches out and grabs you from
the beginning. I hav enjoyed Kenneth Oppel’s books and was excited to see a new one. This is an adventurous and spooky middle grade book that has a lighthearted tone and a fast pace. The creepy level is perfect for middle grade.

This is an adventurous and spooky middle grade book that has a lighthearted tone and a fast pace. It has a cast of lovable characters (both dead and alive) and a lot of action to keep young readers engaged. The one element of the story that really didn't work for me was the plot line involving the main character's father. It felt rushed and struck a jarring note for me. I enjoyed all the friendships and the bit of blooming romance in the book. And the ghostly elements seemed just the right level of scary for middle grade readers. I think this will be a big hit with young readers looking for something creepy and action packed.

This book starts off with a bang, with the opening lines about killing ghosts, and never lets up much from there. And what I loved the most was that I had no idea how the protagonists were going to solve their problem, the problem of how to kill a ghost.

The story starts off with a lighthouse keeper and his daughter, Rebecca. It is going to be her first time learning about the mysterious work her father does as a lighthousekeeper, and when she learns it involves killing evil ghosts, she is so excited.

Turns out that is also the same day she dies, because of the evil ghost.

And it turns out that she doesn’t awaken until nearly 200 years later, when Gabe, a young man who gives tours of the self-same lighthouse, mentions her name in every tour. He does it because their murder was never solved, and this awakens her ghost, and that is how we learn that the evil ghost is till out there and needs to be stoped, with something called a ghost light.

Gabe, and his two friends spend the rest of the book searching for the said ghost light, getting it, losing it, getting it. There are so many false hopes, and setbacks, but all in all a very exciting tale.

The action takes place in and around Toronto, and although I am not familiar with it, the way the story is told makes it feel quite real.

<em>Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.</em>

I received a complimentary digital copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Ghostlight by Kenneth Oppel creates a supernatural, fantasy world set in mordent day Toronto. The plot moves very quickly, and the tensions are always high. So this is perfect for younger readers who might not have the best attention span! The supernatural parts of this book can be spooky, but nothing too scary or graphic. The tension is built well in the beginning and increases as the plot moves along. Once you get into the story, you won't be able to put the book down.

While the plot is certainly entertaining, the key too this story's success is definitely the different relationships between the characters. Of course, Gabe and Rebecca's relationship is front and center. And Oppel does a good job of building up their character development while also moving the plot along. Gabe and his mother also had sweet and realistic interactions. Callie and Turi were adorable, both separately and their interactions together.

I do wish there were more interactions between Rebecca, Callie, and Yuri, I think some of the sacrifices/efforts would have made more sense if their relationship was built up more. I also think the relationship between Gabe and brother could have also been developed. The references to Andrew were scattered around the book, but it never resulted in even an interaction.

Fans of uber-creepy ghost stories will thoroughly enjoy this imaginative story of lighthouse keepers who protect the living from evil ghosts through the use of special lenses that blast the ghosts apart.

There is a nice blend of past and present here, with the ghost from the past interacting with three young people in present-day Toronto. The ghosts are just scary enough, although the Main Ghost, Nicholas Viker, is pretty alarming. The friendship among the three human protagonists is nicely drawn, as are the interactions betwene ghosts and humans.

Fans of YA paranormal stories will pick this one up.

Ghost light begins with a very scary scene that gets the book started off with a bang!

Gabe, a teenager, is earning money over the summer as a tour guide for a haunted lighthouse. His summer job is scaring tourists with ghost stories. He even embellishes the facts he has been given concerning the haunting to make his spiel scarier. He’s quite good at this until his job takes a terrifying turn as he accidentally summons the spirit of a dead girl. This girl now awakened, has demands. Gabe and friends encounter some pretty terrifying situations involving nice and also very wicked and dangerous dead folk.

The dead girl awakened is Rebecca Strand who was just sixteen when she and her father fell to their deaths from the top of the Gibraltar Point Lighthouse in 1839. Just how they fell remains a mystery if they actually fell or were they pushed? . So even today their ghosts haunt the lighthouse since the event of well over a century ago.

Even though Gabe tells this story every day on his ghost tour on Toronto Island, he himself doesn’t believe in ghosts. That is until he finds himself face to face with Rebecca Strand. The true story of her death is far more terrifying than any ghost tale Gabe has told. Rebecca reveals that her father was a member of the Order, a secret society devoted to protecting the world from “the wakeful and wicked dead”—malevolent spirits like Viker, the ghost responsible for their deaths. Now it seems that Viker’s ghost is growing ever stronger and more powerful. Now Gabe and his friends must find a way to stop Viker before they all end up walking among the lost souls.

While some scenes and the story were quite captivating, I felt the text a little long and wordy. Still this is quite a creepy tale that should be popular among middle school and young adult readers.