Review – The Gravedigger’s Handbook by Jern Tonkoi
Jern Tonkoi is quickly becoming one of my favourite authors, and The Gravedigger’s Handbook is exactly the kind of story that proves why. No matter which genre he touches, his novels are always heartfelt, unhurried, and deeply human. This one is sweet in its own ghost-lit way—steady, gentle, and guided by the slow rhythm of life breathing in and out.
Lucien is the caretaker of an old cemetery above Pontarçon. His days are shaped by quiet routines: tending headstones, trimming bushes, keeping the flowers fresh. The cemetery feels almost suspended in time—a sanctuary where the seasons turn softly, where the dead linger just long enough to find peace. Lucien can see and speak to some of them, and helping these ghosts cross over gives his own life a meaning he rarely allows himself.
Scarred both physically and emotionally, abandoned young and taken in by the former caretaker, Lucien has lived in this place for years. The graveyard becomes refuge and home, its silence a balm, its dead his closest companions. It’s a solitary existence, but a familiar and safe one… until Nat arrives.
Nat is young, hurting, searching for something that might spark the will to live again. An artist who has lost his fire, he finds in Lucien a muse he didn’t expect. He sketches him piece by piece—first a hand, then the curve of a shoulder, the line of a jaw. In learning to draw the details, he begins to truly see the man beneath the hood, beyond the scars, beyond the solitude.
"To be the centre of his gaze feels like standing in the eye of a storm. Terrifying. Beautiful. Impossible to leave."
It’s a beautiful metaphor for the emotional heart of the story: that slow, intense moment when someone starts seeing you more clearly than you see yourself.
We never get a complete physical description of either character—just splotches of detail, fragments of fabric and shadows—but we come to know them intimately through their grief. Lucien, who has spent years waiting for a father who never accepted him. Nat, who mourns the life he lost and sometimes can only sit by a gravestone, waiting for meaning to return.
Together, sketch by sketch, night after night, they pull each other slightly closer to healing, simply by staying, listening, and witnessing each other’s pain.
"A friend isn't the one who talks you out of the dark—it's the one who keeps the lantern burning till you find your way out."
This line feels written for Lucien and Nat. Their connection isn’t about saving each other dramatically—it’s about presence, patience, and the small, steady light of companionship.
Spoilers below — click to reveal
The first twist is that Nat is not a ghost, though Lucien truly believed he was. While Nat never pretended, Lucien only saw what he hoped to see, and the truth blindsides him. Nat is living, breathing—someone who can walk away at any moment—and for Lucien, that possibility feels like betrayal.
After a painful confrontation, the two separate. Nat completes the portrait, and when Lucien finally sees himself captured on paper—his grief, his longing, his quiet will to live—something shifts. He gathers his courage, leaves the safety of the cemetery, and seeks Nat out, bringing him the final piece that will launch his artistic career.
In doing so, Lucien allows himself to be seen by the living for the first time in years. And that’s when we learn the final truth: Lucien was the ghost all along.
His story has been one of waiting—waiting to be loved, accepted, understood. In death, he finally finds peace knowing he was truly seen and loved for who he was. And Nat, in turn, finds the spark that brings him back to life.
The ending is bittersweet, but in the most perfect way: gentle, mournful, and full of quiet hope. It leaves you with that fragile blend of sadness and warmth that lingers long after the last page.
If you’re drawn to queer gothic intimacy, atmospheric rural settings, grief-tinged tenderness, and slow, immersive storytelling that unfolds like mist at dawn, this novel is a gem. Not a conventional HEA, but a luminous one that feels exactly right for these characters.
