The Light Between Oceans

Starred review from June 4, 2012
In Stedman’s deftly crafted debut, Tom Sherbourne, seeking constancy after the horrors of WWI, takes a lighthouse keeper’s post on an Australian island, and calls for Isabel, a young woman he met on his travels, to join him there as his wife. In peaceful isolation, their love grows. But four years on the island and several miscarriages bring Isabel’s seemingly boundless spirit to the brink, and leave Tom feeling helpless until a boat washes ashore with a dead man and a living child. Isabel convinces herself—and Tom—that the baby is a gift from God. After two years of maternal bliss for Isabel and alternating waves of joy and guilt for Tom, the family, back on the mainland, is confronted with the mother of their child, very much alive. Stedman grounds what could be a far-fetched premise, setting the stage beautifully to allow for a heart-wrenching moral dilemma to play out, making evident that “Right and wrong can be like bloody snakes: so tangled up that you can’t tell which is which until you’ve shot ’em both, and then it’s too late.” Most impressive is the subtle yet profound maturation of Isabel and Tom as characters. Agent: Susan Armstrong, Conville & Walsh.

March 20, 2012
The Light between Oceans is the debut novel from Australian author M L Stedmen (now living in the UK), which sparked a fierce bidding war and has already sold into multiple territories. Tom Sherbourne has survived Word War I, but now faces a terrifying situation of a completely different nature. He and his wife live on an otherwise uninhabited island off the coast of Western Australia, where Tom keeps the lighthouse. Here, he experiences peace from the bloody memories of the Great War that sometimes haunt him, but his wife Isabel miscarries three children, far from medical aid. When a boat carrying a dead man and a baby washes ashore, Isabel is smitten with the little girl, and Tom cannot deny her the baby. But what will it cost them both? This story is fascinating and so beautifully told—I couldn’t put it down. It perfectly evoked Australia, particularly in the descriptions of a lonely island and a small country town. The rhythm of the lighthouse and the family’s days on the island seem at once completely normal and unusually beautiful. The shifts in perspective and the growing cast of characters require the reader pays attention, but it is impossible not to. This is a romantic and a tragic book which grapples with themes such as vengeance and forgiveness, and will have crossover appeal for literary and general fiction readers.

Jessica Broadbent is a qualified librarian who has worked in publishing and bookselling