Lightbreakers by Aja Gabel

Lightbreakers

A Novel

Aja Gabel

Penguin Publishing Group · Print & ebook · November 4, 2025

A Belletrist Book Club Pick One of the Most Anticipated Books of the Fall: LA Times, Harper's Bazaar, LitHub, The Millions “Riveting . . .

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Who it’s for
A moody genre blend that keeps the mechanics and feelings in motion.
Genres
Time Travel Fiction, Literary Fiction, Psychological Fiction
Published
Penguin Publishing Group, November 4, 2025

About this book

A Belletrist Book Club Pick One of the Most Anticipated Books of the Fall: LA Times, Harper's Bazaar, LitHub, The Millions “Riveting . . . Lightbreakers is a marvel. . . propulsive and unforgettable.”–Washington Post “You will love this genre-busting book. . . A beautiful meditation of grief, time, and love.” –Samin Nosrat What would you give to relive the past? Maya, an artist, and Noah, a quantum physicist, share an insatiable curiosity about the world.

Continue reading

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.

Why It Works

A moody genre blend that keeps the mechanics and feelings in motion.

Come here for

  • time-bending, grief-touched suspense
  • a literary sci-fi setup with room to think

Expect

  • crime-noir pressure
  • book-club conversation without the homework

Where it sits

Time Travel Fiction97%
Literary Fiction66%
Psychological Fiction36%

Percentages are BookFrontier’s reading of the book.

Publisher categories

  • Literary Fiction
  • Time Travel Fiction
  • Family Life
Authors
Aja Gabel
Publisher
Penguin Publishing Group
Published
November 4, 2025
Format
Print & ebook
Reading lane
Literary Fiction