The Light Between Oceans [Hardcover]

The Light Between Oceans is a post WW1 Australian set novel about Tom Sherbourne who having been demobbed gets a job as a lighthouse keeper on Janus Rock. Soon after he marries and he and his wife come to love their isolated idyll. Their paradise becomes tainted by their inability to have children and following her third miscarriage Isabel is cracking under the strain of the grief, when one night a boat is shipwrecked on their shores..... it contains a dead man and a newborn baby. Believing God has answered their prayers Isabel persuades Tom not to report the wreck and they pass the child off as their own.

But though he loves the child, the actions wrack Tom with guilt for years to come.....

This novel is a stunning debut on the part of M.L Steadman and covers such a range of emotions and reactions. Guilt, grief, sacrifice, morality, love, marriage, parenthood, loss, time, change, duty, truth. Above all it is achingly human, and provokes the same dilemma in its reader as in its protagonist.

I am quite a cynic these days, and on top of that a well read one, so it isn't that often these days that I find a novel with the capacity to move me to tears, but this novel did. Its location is atmospheric and beautifully drawn, the sea and the windswept isolation of the island; even with the unusual parameters of the storyline the novel feels gutwrenchingly real, of a place and time and characters who existed as opposed to an entirely fictitious prospect.

Enormously moving and brilliantly told. I won't forget this book in a hurry nor the emotions that rose within me as I read it. A quality piece of writing and a quality novel, I hugely recommend you purchase this book. 10/10

'He's in a place where there's just wind and waves and light, and the intricate machinery that keeps the flame burning and the lantern turning. Always turning, always looking over its shoulder.'

Tom Sherbourne is haunted by traumatic memories of his horrific experiences in World War I. He is one of the men who have returned to Australia, as so many did not. He is not physically scarred, 'but he's scarred all the same, having to live in the same skin as the man who did the things that needed to be done back then.' Now, looking to his future, he becomes a lighthouse keeper. He takes a position on remote Janus Rock, off the coast of South-Western Australia, with Point Partageuse being the nearest community on the mainland. Partageuse is a place where everyone knows everyone else, and where, after the war, 'gradually, once again lives wove together into a practical sort of fabric..', where '..Janus Rock, linked only by the store boat four times a year, dangled off the edge of the cloth like a loose button that might easily plummet to Antarctica.'

He meets local girl Isabel Graysmark whilst he is on the mainland, they correspond with each other when Tom returns to the lighthouse, and they fall in love and marry. For Isabel, the war has instilled a sense of urgency into life: 'If the war had taught her anything, it was to take nothing for granted...life could snatch away the things you treasured, and there was no getting them back.' Moving forward in time to the mid 1920s, we meet them living out on Janus Rock together, with a sadness hanging between them that they have no children, Isabel having suffered miscarriages. When a boat is washed up on the rock, they make a decision that day which will change the rest of their lives, as the couple is torn between love and desperate need, and the truth and reality of their situation.

There are some beautiful descriptions of the places, which made me want to visit the fictional Partageuse. Equally, the remote location of the lighthouse, the effects of the weather, the detail of the daily duties Tom carries out, is all conveyed well, and very convincingly, so that the reader can imagine the routine of their days, sense the isolation of the lighthouse keeper and his wife, and feel the remoteness of life on Janus Rock. The effects of the War on the community in Partageuse are movingly described, reminding us of the involvement of Australia in that conflict.

This is stunning prose and heart-wrenching storytelling for a debut writer. Through the story, the author delivers many truths about life. She highlights the best and worst sides of humans, the amount of courage, the strength of love, the severity of intense pain, the cruelty inflicted by a decision made out of Isabel's desperate longing, the remorse felt. A lovely read, it is also heartbreaking as the story unfolds and the repercussions play out. I was willing all the characters to the 'best' outcome for all of them, somehow. This story really touched me, I felt quite deeply affected by it, and I cried at the end. I loved this book. It's a great debut novel.

Thiis is Stedman's debut novel and I honestly thought initially I was reading an established author, as the writing is well crafted, characters well drawn, plot interesting and the book draws you in front the start. We are transported to Australia, to Janus Rock where the Janus lighthouse stands, between the two oceans (hence the title). The lighthouse represents the last sight of Australia that Tom Sherbourne, one of the central characters, saw as he left to fight in World War 1. Tom survived the war physically unscathed by mentally traumatised. In the 1920s Tom is now lighthouse keeper on Janus Rock.

On his first visit to the lighthouse, he stops at the nearest port town and meets Isabel Graysmark. Their courtship is a protracted affair, with no communication other than letters every three months. The isolation of their love is very strong and depicted very well by the author. It was clear that Isabel and Tom were meant to be together and that they could fight anything that was brought against them. However, tragedy strikes them more than once, but despite everything the lighthouse and the rock it stands on brings them light, hope and a future. Isabel and Tom are both oceans that are drawn together by a light and driven apart by one. The reader is in on a secret with Isabel and Tom which is gradually revealed to others in the novel. As someone who had difficulty conceiving a child and experienced a traumatic labour, I could really empathise with Isabel's plight but could also understand the conflict that Tom feels and sympathise with the baby's biological family. Some parts had me unshamedly reaching for the tissues because these characters really get under your skin. The secret creates so many questions - Is right to carry on even when it is wrong? Can the guilt of the past be healed by the actions of the future? Only by reading the book will you know and as you do, you question what you would do in that situation. This book raises so many questions, making it a richer, thought provoking text.

Two areas of the book which I would like to mention are the passages dealing with the War, dealt with tenderly but still showing the brutality and futility of war. Many books concentrate solely on the British/American involvement and other nationalities and countries are invariable overlooked, so it was good to see a book focus on the war from an Australian perspective. The other aspect which before reading I wouldn't have been interested in is the routine and role of a lightkeeper. This is covered quite fully, the author having done her research even to the scientific aspect of the light itself made easy for all non science readers like myself. I was ultimately fascinated about such a place and the role of the keeper, and how they endured the isolation they experienced. This is a début novel from an author that I feel has much more to give and look forward to reading what comes next.