Rebecca Strand 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—or were they pushed?—remains a mystery. And their ghosts haunt the lighthouse to this day.

One teen’s summer job scaring tourists with ghost stories takes a terrifying turn when he accidentally summons the spirit of a dead girl—and she has demands. The award-winning author of Airborn delivers a roller-coaster ride of a story about the wakeful and wicked dead.

“Rebecca Strand was sixteen the first time she saw her father kill a ghost.”

Right from the opening line, it is clear that Oppel’s Ghostlight is not your average ghost story. He twists traditional tropes inside out with horrific ghost-eating super ghosts that threaten not only the living but the dead.

Gabe’s ghost tours at the Gibraltar Point Lighthouse take a scary turn when the ghost of a former lighthouse keeper’s daughter, Rebecca, appears to him and reports the threat of Viker, a monster-villain ghost-eating ghost who has consumed and trapped the ghost of her father. With Rebecca’s help and some support from his friends, Yuri and Callie, Gabe tries to stop Viker and his plan to turn the city into a ghostly nightmare. The plot takes several frightful twists and turns as things continue to get worse for Gabe and his friends, leading to an epic showdown between Gabe and Viker on the top of the CN Tower.

The story is set in several historical (and haunted) places around Toronto and on the Toronto Islands, but Oppel masterfully weaves a paranormal dimension of mystery and terror between the historical and contemporary places. The pace is quick and keeps the reader turning the pages. Especially captivating is the scene when the CN Tower becomes a super ghostlight which, by a horrible twist of fate, attracts and strengthens the ghosts rather than repelling them like the Gibraltar Point Lighthouse. Gabe and his friends must give everything they have to stop Viker from turning the city into a ghostly playground and to free the ghost of Rebecca’s father.

Each character has sufficient depth and contributes something different to the story: Gabe’s research and knack for storytelling, Yuri’s technological savvy and Callie’s boldness and skills as a reporter. There is a sub-theme of Gabe mourning the death of his father, but Oppel does not develop this theme as much as he does in other books such as Inkling. More intriguing is the quest by the historical character, Rebecca, to find peace for her father as well as to find a connection to the living world through Gabe.

Ghostlight raises the bar for the upper middle-grade horror genre and would not disappoint readers who like their local history infused with an element of horror. Callie’s description of ghost stories is suitable for the book when she says, “Ghost stories are kind of like history class, only better.” Oppel’s efforts to deliver an action-packed ghost thriller puts the reader to the test and earns Oppel an A+.

Genre: middle grade fantasy (paranormal).

-James Steeves