Book Launch | Lightbreakers by Aja Gabel

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ABOUT THE BOOK

A luminous novel of love, loss, science, and art, that asks if the past can ever be truly revisited, and at what cost?

In the beginning, there was happiness. Maya, an artist obsessed with the nature of beauty, and Noah, a quantum physicist preoccupied by the mysteries of the universe, found in each other a shared curiosity about the world. But beneath the surface of their happy marriage is a third rail: Serena, the lost child that Noah had with his ex-wife, Eileen. One day Noah gets a call from an eccentric billionaire, asking him to participate in a clandestine project aiming to unravel the secrets of time and consciousness. The couple agrees to relocate to the Janus Lab, deep in the desert, where Noah finds himself drawn into a dangerous kind of time travel that could result in seeing Serena again. As Noah delves into this groundbreaking, fringe work, his past begins to overtake him. And when his ex-wife, Eileen, joins the project, Maya embarks on a journey back to her own past, one that takes her to Japan, to her family, and to a formative lover who once shattered her heart. As Noah, Maya, and Eileen grapple with the balance between holding on and letting go, new information emerges that the Janus Lab might not be exactly what it seems. A heart-achingly 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.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

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

IN CONVERSATION WITH

Angela Flournoy’s new novel, The Wilderness, was released in September 2025. Her debut novel, The Turner House, was a finalist for the National Book Award. The novel won the VCU Cabell First Novel Prize and was also a finalist for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize and an NAACP Image Award. Her nonfiction has appeared in many publications, including The New York Times, The Nation, The Los Angeles Times and The New Yorker.