The Light Between Oceans

Tom & Isabel Sherbourne inhabit the small island of Janus where the lighthouse keeps the boats of the ocean safe. Living on Janus can be hard, distant and sometimes even cold. That's the life of the light keeper and of his wife. Isolation is normal and socializing almost non-existent.

Isabel wants children, more than she can put into words, yet life has other plans. After three miscarriages she doesn't feel she can go on. One dark night, a dingy appears and a baby's wailing floats to where Isabel stands at the shore.

A man (dead) and a newborn are in the dingy...the baby wrapped in a woman's cardigan. Isabel, desperate for a child, convinces Tom not to report the boat, the dead father, or the living, breathing child. The mother must be dead because what mother would leave their child? Tom, seeing the desperation in her eyes (and remembering the pain of what she's been through) cannot refuse her. What they don't expect is that they are wrong, and the child's mother isn't dead at all...their happiness causing another's pain.

I know some will read this book and judge the couple harshly. Yet what people seem to forget is that Tom & Isabel lived in a time where war had ravaged the town, where men who survived came back different and that sometimes loss can cloud one's thinking. Isabel, in her devastating grief, which was extremely fresh, latched onto what she thought was divine intervention. Tom, as a man shadowed by war, couldn't see his way to devastate her and extinguish what little light she had left.

This was beautifully written and was painful in its reading. This wasn't a who is right and they are wrong type book. This was desperation turned bad decision which in turn caused a lot of heartache for everyone involved, but even still...in the darkest pit of despair there is always hope. Have tissues ready.