Lightbreakers: A Novel

by Aja Gabel

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

Time, loss and grief are all intricately examined in this genre-defying story of a man who struggles to move forward after the loss of his daughter. Mysterious and mesmerizing, Lightbreakers explores how far one would go to save someone they love.

One of the Most Anticipated Books of the Fall: LA Times, Harper's Bazaar,
LitHub, The Millions, Our Culture

“You will love this genre-busting book. . . A cross of literary fiction and sci-fi, it’s also a beautiful meditation of grief, time, and love.” –Samin Nosrat

A luminous novel, "as breathtaking as it is mind-bending" (Rachel Khong), that asks: what would you give to relive the past?

Maya, an artist, and Noah, a quantum physicist, share an insatiable curiosity about the world. But their happy marriage has a shadow over it: Serena, the child Noah had with his first wife, who died before she turned four.

When Noah is invited by the Janus Project to unravel the secrets of time travel, he jumps at the opportunity. At a laboratory deep in the Texas desert, he begins participating in a dangerous experiment that could result in something he thought impossible: seeing his daughter again.

Meanwhile, Maya embarks on a journey back to her own past in Japan, and to a formative lover who once shattered her heart. As Noah and Maya grapple with hope and despair, new information emerges that the experiments might not be exactly what they seems.

A heartachingly moving novel, Lightbreakers plumbs the mysteries of human connection, and explores how to love in a world where time is both a healer and a thief.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780593329702
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	11/04/2025
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	9.00(w) x 6.00(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Aja Gabel is the author of the novel The Ensemble. Her prose can be found in The Cut, the Los Angeles Times, Oprah Daily, and elsewhere. Her short story “Little Fish” was adapted into a feature film, and she has written extensively for television. She lives in Los Angeles.

Editorial Reviews

“A novel about grief, ambition, and love . . . as breath-taking as it is mind-bending.” –Rachel Khong, New York Times bestselling author of Real Americans

"Magisterial and moving. . . Lightbreakers is complex, startling, and impossibly alive." –Kevin Wilson, New York Times bestselling author of Nothing to See Here

“A marriage story that twists into a sci-fi thriller, posing questions about the elusiveness of the past and the time-jumping nature of grief. . . Lightbreakers made me see things anew.” –Ling Ma, author of Severance

“You will love this genre-busting book. . . A cross of literary fiction and sci-fi, it’s also a beautiful meditation of grief, time, and love.” –Samin Nosrat, author of Salt Fat Acid Heat

“Soulful science fiction that speaks to the mind as well as the heart.” –Chloe Benjamin, New York Times bestselling author of The Immortalists

“Audaciously tackles life’s most formative experiences: love and loss.” –Rumaan Alam, New York Times bestselling author of Entitlement

"Satisfying…Gabel hits a winning combination in this tale of modern love and time travel.” –Publishers Weekly

“A phenomenal portrait of profound grief.” –Booklist, starred review

“A poignant and sharp novel about love, loss, and finding light in the darkness.” –Kirkus Reviews

“Readers will love the novel’s impressive pacing, and the ideas it presents about the intersection of art and science will linger in the mind." –Bookpage, starred review

“A deeply moving, mind-bending read." –Real Simple

"Absolutely fascinating." –Literary Hub

From the Publisher

2025-08-16
A secret scientific breakthrough threatens to split up a married couple.

Gabel’s affecting sophomore novel follows Noah, a grief-stricken physicist, as he navigates the world after a devastating loss. Noah was once married to Eileen, a biologist and his first love, but their relationship and lives fell apart after the sudden death of their almost 4-year-old daughter, Serena. More than half a decade later, Noah is now remarried to Maya, a lapsed artist, who entered his world “like a warm steady light after years of darkness, pain, and grief.” As the novel weaves together the perspectives of Noah, Maya, and Eileen, the three characters’ lives begin to intersect after Noah accepts a job from Klein Michaels, a disgraced billionaire, to work on a top-secret, shadowy venture. The Janus Project allows people to travel back to their own memories, not as an outside observer but as their current self. As Noah becomes increasingly lost in his work and the possibility of seeing Serena again, Maya feels a distance swelling between them. With a precarious present and an uncertain future, they each look toward their past for comfort and answers: Noah decides to bring Eileen into the Janus Project, and Maya starts communicating with her artist ex-boyfriend. As Noah teeters on the brink of no return, Eileen contacts Maya with a plea: “how strange it was that they’d both decided the same thing…at the same time, like entangled particles, like knowledge traveling faster than the speed of light, like people of the same family, context, past, future, now.” The two women work to escape their situation, which threatens their physical, emotional, and temporal well-being. Combining elements of science fiction, mystery, and domestic realism, the novel grapples with the complexities of time, memory, grief, family, art, and science. Gabel beautifully explores the ways the past echoes endlessly in the present and into the future—and the unimaginable lure of being with the ones we love no matter the cost.

A poignant and sharp novel about love, loss, and finding light in the darkness.

Kirkus Reviews