The Light on Horn Island (Revell 2024) by Valerie Fraser Luesse is a gently comforting book, merging the familiar and the whimsical to shape Edie Gardner’s path to healing and discovery in the small coastal town where she once spent her summers. She now returns to stay with her grandmother, Adele “Punk” Cheramie, and the Ten Spots, a vivid group of women and Punk’s lifelong friends, whom Edie considers family. Through Luesse’s evocative prose, the reader grows to consider them with the same fondness. Indeed, Bayou de Chêne, Mississippi, and its surrounding towns fill the reader with an intense wave of nostalgia. This nostalgia is wonderfully mixed with the mysterious—and slightly fantastical—happenings on the uninhabited Horn Island, in a strange new antique store (and its enigmatic owner), and within Edie’s blood and chosen family.
Edie, leaving New York City after the loss of her closest friend Leni goes back to her grandmother Punk’s house in coastal Mississippi, where Edie spent many summers as a child and teenager exploring Horn Island. She reunites with her grandmother and the rest of the Ten Spots, along with a close family friend, in a setting that is familiar to the reader, yet also singular to the Gulf Coast. It is here that Edie begins her healing journey; to balance remembering Leni and still move forward in life; to figure out what comes next in her career; and to reconnect with old friends, as well as an old flame. As Edie revisits Horn Island, she comes across Hebrew written in the sand and later learns that fisherman had seen a queer light on the island in the same area as the writing. Thus starts the mystery, which continues when the Ten Spots tell Edie about a similarly curious antique store named the Trove, which seemed to appear out of nowhere along with its sibylline and charismatic owner, Jason Toussaint, whom the reader cannot help but feel has some connection to Horn Island. Edie herself feels a deep connection to both the store and Jason, and this fosters Edie’s growth as she grapples with her grief and lack of direction in life. Through the interventions of Jason, and the investigations of Edie, secrets begin to unravel, further driving the plot and uncovering layers to each of the women. Luesse wastes no time in setting up her main plot points within the very first pages but allows room for curiosity and subtlety as she combines fiction with bits of historical reality and Southern charm.
One of Luesse’s greatest strengths is her description of female relationships and the women within them. Each member of the Ten Spots is written without hesitation, containing all the complexity that women have outside of fiction. This group provides the backbone of love and support that The Light on Horn Island, and Edie herself, needs. For the most part, each woman reads very differently and vibrantly. The Light on Horn Island is also filled with wonderful descriptions of gulf environments, as could only be seen through a photographer’s eyes.
While Luesse immediately sets up the main driving forces, the middle of the book drifts and feels a tad unfocused— perhaps a side effect of having so many different plot devices that are only vaguely connected— and this causes much of The Light on Horn Island’s plot to be weaker in its hold of this reader’s interest. However, the last couple of chapters piqued both my interest as a reader and philosophically; this book can be read, in my opinion, through both an overt Christian view and a more general spiritual lens. The Hebrew writing, which Jason so helpfully translates to “‘Help one, save one, lead one home,’ guides Edie (unknowingly) and the reader through the book, and as the reader reflects on the end, the quote shines through, no matter what religion the reader ascribes to.
The Light on Horn Island is an enchanting, comforting novel, reminiscent of early summer evenings on the coast, with a lovely spiritual guiding that explores grief and friendship through both whimsy and reality, leading to a fulfilling reading experience in all senses of the word.
Valerie Fraser Luesse
Valerie Fraser Luesse is the author of Almost Home and the bestselling, Christy Award–winning Missing Isaac. Her third novel, The Key to Everything, was inspired by a true story. An award-winning magazine writer, Luesse is best known for her features and essays in Southern Living, where she is currently the senior travel editor. Specializing in stories about unique pockets of Southern culture, she has published major pieces on the Gulf Coast, the Mississippi Delta, Acadian Louisiana, and the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Her editorial section on Hurricane Katrina recovery in Mississippi and Louisiana won the 2009 Writer of the Year award from the Southeast Tourism Society. The author lives in Birmingham, Alabama, with her husband, Dave—and a mischievous orange cat named Cheeto.
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