Abby Geni’s debut novel, The Lightkeepers, is a haunting and beautiful book and one of the best I have read so far this year. Having lived in San Francisco for most of my adult life, I am familiar with the setting: The Farallon Islands.

From page one, I was enthralled. Geni’s prose is magnetic and, in no time, I found myself transported to this remote and sometimes treacherous archipelago. The protagonist, Miranda, through whose eyes we see the Farallon’s, is herself an enigma and, much like the islands she inhabits, is possessed of a dark and terrible beauty.

I know that I will be reading this book again and that it will not leave me easily. It is also one of the few novels that I would like to purchase in hardback, so it can sit proudly on my bookcase, to be taken down time and time again to be reread.