The Light Between Oceans by M. L. Stedman

Release date: July 31st, 2012

Series: / standalone

Pages: 362

Genre: Historical fiction

Australia, 1926. After four harrowing years fighting on the Western Front, Tom Sherbourne returns home to take a job as the lighthouse keeper on Janus Rock, nearly half a day's journey from the coast. To this isolated island, where the supply boat comes once a season and shore leaves are granted every other year at best, Tom brings a young, bold, and loving wife, Isabel. Years later, after two miscarriages and one stillbirth, the grieving Isabel hears a baby's cries on the wind. A boat has washed up onshore carrying a dead man and a living baby.

Tom, whose records as a lighthouse keeper are meticulous and whose moral principles have withstood a horrific war, wants to report the man and infant immediately. But Isabel has taken the tiny baby to her breast. Against Tom's judgment, they claim her as their own and name her Lucy. When she is two, Tom and Isabel return to the mainland and are reminded that there are other people in the world. Their choice has devastated one of them.

❝Life could snatch away the things you treasured, and there was no getting them back.❞

I admit I dove into this book without knowing what it really is about because it was recommended to me by a friend and it actually turned out as a really interesting read.

Although I did not find this story sad enough to cry at the end, it was written in a sad undertone throughout the whole book. Tom and Isabel have a difficult life and despite being good people and trying to do the right thing, they make a wrong decision once they see a baby at the shore.

Isabel, after losing three babies already, is ecstatic and she wants to keep the little girl, but Tom has restrictions. He knows this is forbidden and he knows what's going to wait for him if someone finds out about what they did, but he still obliges just to make his wife happy again.

Their action has consequences for all of them: Tom, Isabel, little Lucy and the mother of the child. They have consequences for their families and friends, too.

It's a difficult book to read sometimes, especially because it deals with many moral aspects. You have to really get in the head of the characters to really understand where they're coming from because everyone has their right and everyone has different motives and wishes.

But who's right in this situation? What is the right thing to do?

Many wrong decisions have been made already. Do they want to make more of them?

This book is, without a doubt, a sad book with a happy ending on its own, but still sad. This is a book about good people making bad decisions and having to pay for them.

It's an interesting book, but I felt it was a little dragging at some parts and it could be shortened to make it more interesting, especially towards the end.