The more I love an author’s debut novel, the more nervous I am starting their second. But this wasn’t the case with LIGHT PIRATE. I just knew it would be awesome.

Brooks-Dalton’s first book, GOOD MORNING, MIDNIGHT, blew my doors off. I literally yelled, “Oh my GOD!” at one point. It was a massive story in a small footprint, full of regret, hope, and tension. LIGHT PIRATE is different (set in tropical Florida vs. the frozen arctic) but similar in emotions, investment, and gorgeous description.

@jordysbookclub describes it best. “A hopeful, sweeping story of survival and resilience spanning one extraordinary woman’s lifetime as she navigates the uncertainty, brutality, and arresting beauty of a rapidly changing world.”

In the not-so-distant future, Florida (or what’s left of it) is barraged by hurricanes. Its water table rises, levees fail, and municipalities quit. Swamps previously paved over reclaim their birthright. We see all this unfold through the story (shockingly, only 336 pages). More importantly, we know the impact it has on a small group: A linesman, Kirby, his new wife, his sons from a previous marriage, their neighbor Phyllis, and their daughter Wanda.

LIGHT PIRATE is one of my favorites of 2022. Thanks, NetGalley, and Grand Central Publishing, for the pre-publication book!

"The Light Pirate" by Lily Brooks-Dalton is hands down one of the best novels I've read this year! Both heartwarming and tragic, this book is a frightening view of the future if we cannot solve the climate crisis. It's a powerful novel with an even more powerful warning about a future we do not want to face; a future where hurricanes, heat waves, and fires are the norm and people must struggle to adapt to a rapidly changing world without the infrastructure that brings stability to our current lives. This book packs a serious punch and will really make the reader think! While not overtly political, this book is certainly provocative and does not shy away from the horrors of climate change.

Reminding me a bit of Kya from "Where the Crawdads Sing," Wanda is an incredibly endearing character who stays strong through the loss of family, her home, and eventually the world we as we know it. Her beautifully crafted story is told through lyrical and detailed prose; the writing creates a high definition movie in the reader's mind. I was swept up and along by Wanda's story, appropriate for a story so influenced by water and nature. Indeed, nature seems almost to be a character itself in this book.

My heartfelt gratitude to NetGalley, the author, and the publisher for the tremendous privilege of reading an advanced digital copy of this phenomenal book, in exchange for my honest review. Five stars!

This is a story about human resistance and adaptation to change.  The novel opens with Florida in the near future, where hurricanes and rising sea levels are putting increasing pressure on the state's crumbling infrastructure.  Kirby Lowe, a longtime Florida resident and electrical worker, is not overly concerned about the latest approaching storm -- he's lived through several such hurricanes and is confident in his ability to protect his home and family.  His new wife, who is pregnant, is by contrast feeling quite anxious about the approaching storm.  Her worries seem prescient when Kirby's two children from his first children go missing just before the hurricane hits.  As Kirby searches for them amidst worsening conditions, Frida goes into premature labor and names her new daughter Wanda after the storm raging when she enters the world.

The story follows Wanda as she grows up, navigating a world that is changing more rapidly than many expected. It charts her her place among her family, both born to and found, and her relationship to the larger community in which she lives -- as the nature of community and home is undergoing existential change simultaneously quickly and slowly, just like the natural and built environments in which she lives.

This book is excellent.  The author does a superb job of bringing to life the changes in the natural world and its impact on how people live and how society functions.  In the author's capable hands, the developments she portrays seem both entirely believable and utterly horrifying. 
Within this context, the book shows the range of reactions that people have to these changes -- driven in part by age, preconceptions, and attachments to existing ways of life -- and how difficult it can be to accept obvious changes at this scale until it is too late.  The author also excels at capturing the personal relationships that are ultimately the heart of this story, particularly Wanda's relationships with the four people who are her most important, but quite different, connections during a time when society frays and ultimately falls apart.  This was a highly emotional and impactful read that I will continue to think about for months to come.

Very highly recommended!

As a Floridian, I found it easy to imagine the storms and events that unfold in The Light Pirate happening to my community. Though scary to picture my family living through times like these, I think it's an important to be aware of the realities of climate change. I appreciate the way The Light Pirate spotlights this important topic. While The Light Pirate is full of struggle, devastation and loss, it is ultimately a bright, hopeful, adventurous story of survival, adaptation and new beginnings.

This smart novel is a terrifying look into what our future on this planet could be. It scared me. I'm not sure I've ever been so thoroughly scared by a novel. Lily Brooks-Dalton does an incredible job of creating this reality that I can so easily picture us running into. I found myself wondering while reading how she was able to so thoroughly explore the details of losing an entire state to the climate crisis. The abandonment, the deaths, the loneliness--Brooks-Dalton embedded these into the writing so seamlessly.

So no, this one won't cure your climate anxiety, but she still leaves the reader with a little bit of hope. The theme of adaptability in humans was so beautifully interwoven into this tale of despair. Seeing Wanda's story grow and change with the climate and the rising sea was both dark and hopeful.

It was also one of the things that was most intriguing to me--how Brooks-Dalton shows the passing of time. The story spans generations, and Brooks-Dalton uses her writing to show the evolution of the human mind as it ages and in the context of the surroundings. I've never read a novel that captures the beauty and devastation of human life in such a gorgeous way.

I was speechless after finishing this one, and I can't say much more other than to laud the emotion and depth Brooks-Dalton put into this story.

The Light Pirate is a devastatingly real portrait of life before, during, and after a hurricane. Set in a fictional small town on Florida's east coast, the story takes you through the aftermath of each hurricane through the family of Kirby Lowe. Each member of the family is dramatically affected by the storms, and the devastation that diminishes their small town. The story centers on Wanda, born during one of the worst hurricanes. How she navigates all of the tragedies is the true plot line of this novel.
As a resident of Miami, I can vouch for the veracity of the fear and the terrible damage. At times, the realistic portrayal is all too real, and thus, hard to continue reading. But that is the reality of the personal stories behind hurricanes.

THE LIGHT PIRATE by Lily Brooks-Dalton is one of my favorite books of the year. The story begins by centering on a family in Florida and is told in four parts: power, water, light, and time. Kirby, the Dad, is an electrical lineman with two sons, Flip (8) and Lucas (12), and a pregnant second wife named Frida. They are busy preparing for a hurricane and become separated; Frida goes into premature labor and Wanda, named for the hurricane storm, is born. As she grows up, Wanda becomes closer to a survivalist neighbor and college teacher named Phyllis who "had spent her entire career seeking knowledge in one form or another, but the pursuit itself taught her infinitely more about the absence of knowledge than its presence. What is magic but science that is not yet understood? What is science but magic with an explanation?" And THE LIGHT PIRATE is indeed magical – readers will be enthralled by the plausibility of environmental changes and also totally engrossed in the personal relationships and adjustments of the endearing characters. THE LIGHT PIRATE is a LibraryReads selection for December and received starred reviews from Booklist and Kirkus ("... complex and engaging characters make climate disaster a vividly individual experience rather than an abstract subject of debate").

I was a little nervous to pick up the The Light Pirate as fantasy tends to not be a genre a gravitate towards and oh my gosh, am I so glad I read this book!

When Wanda is born during a catastrophic hurricane, it sets the tone for her life. As Florida continues to to collapse and become abandoned, Wanda works to find ways to live and in some ways even thrive.

This book is heavy and hard and yet beautifully written - it will stay with me for a long time.

Thanks, Netgalley for the ARC of this book!

This book was marketed for fans of Station Eleven and Where the Crawdads Sing. Having enjoyed both, I was excited for The Light Pirate.

The story takes place in an unspecified, not-too-distant time when climate change has caused the gradual decline of society. Florida takes the first hit after detrimental hurricanes continually leave the state floundering for basic resources. Even when the area is officially closed off, many choose to stay and take their chances in the land they call home.

There's magical realism, dystopian elements, but the highlight for me was the lush, poetic writing. I know it's not everyone's cup of tea, but I was hooked by the first chapter after a detailed description of a character making roast chicken and potatoes for dinner. The descriptions of nature were beautifully done as well.

I wished some plot points were fleshed out a little bit more. We jumped from different time periods, and I never felt totally grounded before leaping into the next section. Even so, I enjoyed this unique novel.

This book paints such a vivid picture of Florida after it has been ravaged and left abandoned in the not-so-distant dystopican future. The story is told in four parts - Power, Water, Light, and Time - and Part 1 was simply incredible. Covering our main character's birth during a hurricane, the author did a great job at making me feel like I was in the storm too. The setting is tense and tangible, the stakes were high, you ached for the characters, and you gritted your teeth as you made your way through the storm with them.

After Part 1, I felt a little less engaged as the story slowed down. There is a lot of necessary set up here, but this part was tougher to get through. Following such a captivating beginning during a hurricane made the middle of the story feel much slower in my opinion. We follow Wanda as she grows up, and seeing how her everyday life is impacted from climate change is fascinating (in a very grim way). This is not a light read, but it is very enlightening.

I found the magical realism part of the story a little lacking. Maybe I expected too much, but I wanted more. I thought it would be a larger part of the plot, but I'd say it takes a backseat to the coming of age aspect with the dystopian backdrop.

All in all, this was a very memorable read and I'm glad I read it. Thank you NetGalley and Grand Central Publishing for my advanced copy in exchange for my honest review!

This was a rather harrowing book for me to read but that didn’t stop it from being totally gripping. Picture a not-terribly-distant future where hurricanes batter Florida and the east coast with more frequency and with more strength than “normal”. Picture the sea level rising and beaches disappearing. Picture the streets of your town permanently disappearing under water. And that’s just a taste of what The Light Pirate will be about.

Wanda, named for the hurricane in which she was born, is the central figure of this story, along with her father Kirby, older brother Lucas and neighbor and teacher-extraordinaire Phyllis. We follow her from her frightening birth to her old age and we witness the huge changes in her environment as she grows. The writing is gorgeous and I now want to check our Brooks-Dalton’s first novel.

As much as I loved this book, I felt I had to take short breaks from it. It was a bit difficult to read this while sitting in my southwest Florida home, barely two months after Hurricanes Ian and Nicole devastated so much of the area So if you’re looking for a light read, this isn’t the right book for you. But if you’re interested in a thought-provoking story about the consequences of climate change and human adaptability, I highly recommend that you dive right in (pun intended).

Note: I don’t think calling this book The Light Pirate was a great decision. It doesn’t really convey anything about the story.

Thank you to NetGalley and Grand Central Publishing for the opportunity to read an advance readers copy of this book. All opinions are my own.

An absorbing tale of climate devastation, loss, survival, change, love and loneliness. A character driven story with a captivating premise, absorbing and lyrical writing and characters who you will be fully vested in.

This story opens in a small, fictional Florida town in a dystopian future. Kirby and his new wife, Frida, are preparing for yet another hurricane. With Kirby's two sons to take care of and a baby on the way, Frida is understandably distraught with Kirby's lackadaisical attitude about the oncoming hurricane. Kirby is a lineman, and so very familiar with storms and feels quite proud of his ability to sense and prepare for dangerous storms. Frida, who has lived through one of the worst storms in history while losing her mother to the storm, will never be able to forget the devastation that Mother Nature can bring. When the hurricane called Wanda hits their small Florida town, one of them will be right, and one of them will have been very wrong.

The story follows this family through the rapidly changing coastline and the effects of climate change, forcing most of the inhabitants of their town to leave and move north. They decide to stay, and they eventually watch everything they knew to be no more. A survivalist neighbor, Phyllis, becomes an integral part of the story. The author focuses the story on this part of the country. There are mentions of how the rest of the country is changing, but the story stays in Florida.

Spanning decades, the story revolves around Wanda (Kirby and Frida's baby) and her journey to survive when the landscape is constantly changing. Wanda is reminiscent of
Kya in Where the Crawdad's sing. She must learn to adapt and learn to live with loss and isolation. While loneliness felt like a dominating theme in this book, other more uplifting themes were nature, resilience, strength and community.

If this review seems vague - it is meant to be. I think the less you expect, the more you will enjoy this story. I found it to be a page turner. Be forewarned that there are many descriptive and somewhat flowery passages, but they added so much to the visual picture that the author paints. There was a faint touch of magical realism in this story that I yearned to be so much more. I wished that it took on more meaning rather than it being in the shadows. But that would be my only bone to pick with this story. The character development was excellent and the storyline felt fearfully close to what out future could easily look like.

I definitely recommend if you enjoy a more character-driven story with inherent sadness. This is not a feel-good story, although you will feel hopeful at the end. Much thanks to Grand Central Publishing and NetGalley for the arc to read and review. 4.5 stars.

A beautiful literary fiction diving into the lives manipulated by human nature, but how strength and hope help them face the hand dealt. A scary reality of how the future may look in an apocalyptic state of global warming. In Southeastern Florida, hurricanes wreck the shoreline taking a little more with each storm surge. A family living on the edge of destruction, stay loyal to the region even though most have moved away.
Kirby and his expecting wife are struggling to stay afloat with his two sons that are difficult stepsons to Frida. As a lineman, Kirby is called out for a storm leaving his wife and boys behind. Frida lays down with labor pains and the boys take out to venture into the approaching storm. One will never make it home. When Kirby locates his other son, he arrives to find he has a daughter named after Hurricane Wanda, but his wife does not make it.
The story begins as an emotional story about love, loss and finding hope. It also ends in sadness, but only after a look at Wanda's life. It is told in four parts: Power, Water, Light and Time, which are all entities in Wanda's life. Captured so subtly is the magic realism that plays a part in rescuing Wanda from her plight. At times, Wanda's life appears in solitaire when she experiences bullying and separation. She finds support in one of her neighbors, Phyllis, who takes her in and teaches her more about life and nature than anyone. The heat becomes unbearable in the daytime leaving travel only at night and even then by boat while nature takes back what is hers. It is a harsh reality none of us want to face in the near future.
Thank you NetGalley and Grand Central Publication for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Wanda, born during Wanda,a hurricane, lives a life as the world surcomes to climate change. She loses her family through tragic events. She ends up living with the old woman who lives in the blue house she has prepared for these events. As Florida slowing sinks and the storms get worse the reader experiences what we are being warmed about. The writing is well done and you leave the book knowing you also should prepare. Recommend for mature teens as well as adult readers.

This book is movie material! There is something magical about this book in that I just could not put it down. The story takes place in Rudder, FL which is a town that is slowly dying because of the longer hurricane seasons and the effects of climate change. Kirby Lowe is a lineman for the utility company and his wife Frida is pregnant when hurricane Wanda hits. Frida gives birth at home by herself and then dies shortly after her husband returns home.. Frida informed Kirby that she waned to name the baby Wanda. The story follows Wanda through her lifetime as she is raised by her father and her neighbor, Phyllis, a retired science teacher and a survivalist. This is a fantastic book and I loved the author's style. This is one of those books that you just cannot stop thinking about after finishing it.

Thank you NetGalley and Grand Central Publishing for the ARC of this wonderful book that kept me riveted from the first page to the very last page.

Well, I live in Florida, land of hurricanes, and hadn’t known much about this book’s plot before picking it up. When the dystopian plot began in earnest, I was surprised, but delighted. This story covered more changes over a longer period of time than I expected. Thumbs up!

Wanda is born in the midst of the Florida hurricane of her name. In fact she is named after it. Florida is constantly hit by hurricanes and is sinking- literally. Wanda learns to survive in this changing world well tutored by their neighbour Phyllis. An interesting novel based in a post apocalyptic world ravaged by the consequences of climate change. Interesting characters and lucid narrative style make for an easy read.

Thank you NetGalley and Grand Central Publishing for the ARC

"The Light Pirate" by Lily Brooks-Dalton is Apocalyptic and Literary Fiction laced with Magical Realism!

A child is born during, and her mother names her after, Hurricane Wanda. Her mother dies in her next breath.

Wanda witnesses a plethora of changes in her lifetime. Change is her only constant. Change in weather patterns, in what family looks like, and what the world surrounding and nurturing her begins to reclaim.

Born with keen senses, Wanda knows she's different, still she's reluctant to share her specialness with others when it's something she can't quite comprehend herself...

I read and loved this authors' debut "Good Morning, Midnight" and I was quickly drawn into this, her sophomore novel.

This story is divided into four parts titled for the elements of Power, Water, Light, and Time. The setting is Southeast Florida in a time when hurricanes become stronger, more frequent, power less reliable, and Florida's coastline begins to slowly dissolve into the ocean. Nature begins to reclaim what's Hers!

For the four elements, while Power is whiplash fast, Water, Light, and Time are slower, hold more detail and reflection. There are contrasts in the apocalyptic landscape and a feeling of otherness in the air that's both beautiful and frighteningly unrecognizable. The authors' writing creates pictures that are vivid and tangible, yet eminently solitary. There is an essence of loneliness. Wanda's loneliness.

I love "The Light Pirate", how it's written, how all the characters surrounding Wanda and connect her world, give continuity to her specialness! This author has me awestruck by the creativity and emotional impact of her storytelling, once again. I highly recommend!

All the stars for "The Light Pirate"!

Thank you to NetGalley, Grand Central Publishing, and Lily Brooks-Dalton for an ARC of this book. It has been an honor to give my honest and voluntary review.

Big thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an eARC copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Station Eleven is one of my favorite books so this had big shoes to fill, but it met my expectations! This is a great work of cli-fi without being overbearing. I can't wait to read more by Lily Brooks-Dalton.

Right off the bat, a book about the impending climate disaster that's just waiting to happen to Florida must be forceful and emphatic enough to seem not plausible but terrifying enough. Over the past decade or so, many real-life disasters have already done enough to expose most of us to all sorts of suffering and pain natural disasters can cause, and so the book has to not just build upon that but build in such a way as to seem likely.

The descriptions of the destruction wrought by multiple hurricanes in Florida (and elsewhere) are very real. Having seen some of that first hand, I can vouch for how real these situations and the people come across.

Kirby is having a hard time convincing his pregnant wife Frida that everything is going to be okay - he is a utility-repairman, he has seen enough of the destruction that fallen trees and downed powerlines and the occasional flooding can cause. This time, however, seems different. There has been talk of "the big one" and this one might be it. However, he has to be a beacon of strength and confidence to his two adolescent sons, along with Frida.

That's the start of the story, but over the course of four sections - presciently names "Power", "Water", "Light" and "Time", the author takes us on a journey to the heart of what natural disasters can create. Somewhere along the way, one realizes that "Waterworld" showed a water world that was unreasonably stable, and whilst it may have been a far future, the journey to get there is perhaps more harrowing - seeing land disappear and water gradually taking over is certainly more traumatic.

Told across years, that seem to fly by in some sections and drag along in some other sections, the book is essentially the story of Wanda, at first the storm, but eventually the girl who reminds everyone of the storm when she came to be, and we follow her as she loses family, gains family, loses years and gains a life, loses comfort and safety, only to regain trust and, eventually, love.

It is not an easy story, and we see the world primarily through Wanda's eyes - for the most part. There are interesting sections where she discovers her light companions, how she figures out things in an every-changing and ever-decaying world, and how she must come to terms with it all. During all this, the book cleverly and rather wisely, chooses to entirely sidestep the happenings over the rest of the world - sure there are news and rumors now and then, but by-and-large, the story remains focused on the small town of Rudder, Fla., thereby allowing us a more mesmerising tale.

It could have been bleak - and in fact, it actually is very depressing for many pages throughout the narrative, but ultimately there is a good story to be told here that did seem a tad too neat in the last few pages, but nonetheless moved me.