Karen’s Pick:
September 2014
The Light Between Oceans
M.L. Stedman, Published July 31st 2012 by Scribner
This first no-vel by M.L. Stedman is a beautifully written book with a sensitively told story. It takes place on Point Partageuse, Australia during the 1920s. The Light Between Oceans is a love story, a mystery and a Greek tragedy that will draw you in from the first line.
On the day of the miracle, Isabel was kneeling at the cliff’s edge, tending the small, newly made driftwood cross.
M.L Stedman does an amazing job of character development. Tom Sherbourne the Janus Rock lighthouse keeper, and a World War I survivor, and his buoyant and loving wife Isabel are depicted in a way that makes us care about them and the moral dilemmas they face.
Sometimes life turns out hard, Isabel. Sometimes it just bites right through you. And sometimes, just when you think it’s done its worst, it comes back and takes another chunk.
The images rendered by Stedman’s of the island off the western coast Australia are beautiful and the symbolism throughout the book is poetic. We learn that the Janus lighthouse is not only a beacon for those travelling on the treacherous waters surrounding the shore but also for the dangerous choices made by those on the land on which it stands.
There are no easy answers to the questions the reader will confront in this book. We soon realize that many of the bad decisions that are made by Tom and Isabel, are for what they believe are the right reasons. The reader will find they will be in disbelief by many of the choices being made. However, we are sympathetic and find that passing judgment makes us uncomfortable.
The Light Between Oceans will make you cry and smile, it will make you care about it’s characters, it will take you to a beautiful and dangerous remote island in the 1920’s and it will not allow you to put it down.