Why a booktrail?
The most heartbreaking story we’ve read in a long while. Set on a remote outpost of Australia, a lighthouse is the only thing Tom and Isabel know until one day a boat is washed up with a baby and a man inside. The man is dead but the baby is very much alive….
See the locations in the novel on our new site! The booktrail.com
Story in a nutshell
In the town of Point Partageuse, Australia during the 1920s, a light house keeper (Tom) and his wife (Isabel) find a life boat with a dead man and live baby in it wash up on their beach.
Isabel has suffered several miscarriages. Life is tough and lonely on Janus Rock. A baby would change things. Who would know if they passed the baby off as their own?
“And the baby’s alive. Have a heart Tom”
The Light Between Oceans is a novel of anguish, joy, tears and all the other raw emotions you can think of.
It’s what happens when good people make bad decisions.
http://www.capeleeuwinlighthouse.com/
The lighthouse of Point Partageuse may be fictional but it is the setting, the remote setting of the landscape, the landscape of their grief at not having a baby and the conflicted feelings they have which really shock and suprise. The day a boat containing a dead man washes ashore is one they will never forget-
“And the baby’s alive. Have a heart Tom”
“Something in her tone struck him, and instead of simply contradicting her, he paused and considered her plea. Perhaps she needed a bit of time with a baby. Perhaps he owed her that. There was a silence, and Isabel turned to him in wordless appeal”
Alongside the main human characters, however, it was the lighthouse which was perhaps the main protagonist, so vivid in every scene. Before Tom and Isabel go and live together, Tom lives there on his own:
“On Janus there is no reason to speak. Tom can go for months and not hear his own voice. He knows some keepers who make a point of singing, just like turning over an engine to make sure it still works. But Tom finds a freedom in the silence. He listens to the wind. He observes the tiny details of life on the island”
This was a story of everyone’s Janus Rock – that place that we all go to for solitude and the one place that gives us the quiet and loneliness that sometimes we welcome and other times can’t wait to flee. It’s the dark recesses of our mind and conscience.
The Author hails from SW Australia so this is also a port of call when trying to determine the locations even though she has said in an interview that the places just formed in her mind.
The book should ideally be read near a lighthouse set on craggy rocks to get the ultimate booktrail experience.
Bookish musings by Susan
The story itself will not only touch you but wrench out your heart and your moral compass in several places. ML Stedman creates some VERY difficult scenarios whilst making you feel as if although you might not agree with what they decide to do, you understand in some way.
Battling with your inner conflict is something that we all do at some point but on an issue as important as a child’s future, it takes on a whole new level.
Think of yourself as a 4 year old child when the whole world revolved around your mother and how things were so simple and uncomplicated. Next imagine that little child trapped at the centre of a moral whirlwind and her realisation of her position as she starts to grow up.
The Light Between Oceans made me cry. I had to read it in one day as after leaving my own version of the lighthouse setting, I returned home and read the rest in bed. I noticed it was midnight so I turned out the light.
Seconds later it went back on until I read the last page.
But I was still at that lighthouse on Janus Rock for a long time afterwards.
The book trail 
Lovely review. I was thinking about taking this away to read on holiday. Now I definitely will be!
Thanks for your kind comment. I’m pleased you’ll be taking this on holiday but I warn you – you will shed a tear! I would be interested to know what you think of it!
I have just finished reading this and, like you, read it in a day! It broke my heart and an hour after finishing I am utterly bewildered between right and wring, a massive blurring of moral boundaries, a compelling read…..
Ah so glad you liked it Helen – and yes isn’t it so sad? The fact you read it in a day made me smile – it had the same effect on you as it did me. I will have to read this again I think – what is right and wrong? I don’t know what I would have done either. Makes you think.
I have been thinking about it all morning too! I have a little girl called Lucy so I think it had even more of an effect on me! I can see the story from both sides but was wishing and hoping that Isobel would get her back even though it was wrong that she had kept her in the first place! So confusing!!!!
I loved this book.Read it once &then again 2 weeks later for my book club. The end was very sad because Isabel did not get to see Lucy before she passed away. Made me shed some tears……..Irma April 5,2014
I cried too at the end and even a bit before that since the emotions in it were so raw. Who knows what a person would do in that situation and you really felt each woman’s pain. Brilliant book – I absolutely loved it. Think I will have to read it again too!
I loved this book amd stayed up all night reading to finish it. I just had to know how it turned out. And then the next day, I started with chapter 31 and reread to the end again. I just couldn’t let it go. It’s still with me even a week later. I’ve been telling everyone I can about the book. My friend is going to read it when she finishes the current book she is reading. I read it because it was my book club book and absolutely loved the author’s writing style and the story, wrenching as it is at times!
Isn’t it great! This book stays with you for a long long time and everytime I see a lighthouse now I wonder…. Love how passionate you are about it and totally understand it as this book really does affect you in so many ways!