Stedman, M.L. The Light Between Oceans: A Novel. New York: Schribner, 2012. Print.
On the day of the miracle, Isabel was kneeling at the cliff's edge, tending the small, newly-made driftwood cross.
A single fat cloud snailed across the late-April sky which stretched above the island in a mirror of the ocean below. Isabel sprinkled more water and patted down the soil around the rosemary bush she had just planted.
"... and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil" she whispered. For just a moment, her mind tricked her into hearing an infant's cry.
Description:
Not such an unusual, albeit sad start to a novel. But this instant of a woman standing over a new grave and hearing a baby cry is the pivotal point in the lives of Isabel and Tom, the young husband and wife lighthouse keepers, alone on an isolated island near Australia. The decisions they soon face drive the emotional story of The Light Between Oceans, the first novel by M.L. Stedman.
What the sea has washed up onto their small, rocky island is a lifeboat with a dead man aboard along with a very much alive, crying infant. Isabel, who has no children, desperately wants to keep the child for themselves to raise, this "gift that's been sent," to create a family they both have prayed for.
She reasonably points out that the father is obviously dead and the mother probably drowned as well. They are isolated in the middle of the ocean, alone with the lighthouse, so what else could possibly be done? And who would know or care about this baby who probably has already been considered lost at sea.
Tom, her more by-the-rules husband, argues that the child should be reported and taken back to the mainland as soon as the yearly supply ship arrives. What happens to the baby after that, in his opinion, will be taken care of by the law and child services, an abhorrent thought to Isabel.
Isabel is too convincing for Tom and the baby stays. Her presence is explained to the supply boat crew as being Isabel's own baby, delivered by herself on the island.
All is well ... until complications arise and the couple gradually learns the history of the child and how she came to their island. And the history of the girl's mother as well.
I loved this book because the characters are so strong and the decisions they face so thought-provoking. Tom, the surviving World War I veteran, has seen the brutality and death of war and is trying to recover his life by isolating himself and Isabel at the lighthouse. He is an honest, straightforward man who loves his wife so completely he will compromise what he feels is right to please her. Isabel, the devoted young wife, grief-stricken by her inability to create a family for them, is so full of passion and love for Tom and the child that we can easily sympathize with her decisions and her desire to give love to an orphaned child.
The combination of hope, love, and heart-breaking decisions made by Tom and Isabel envelope us as readers so totally that we wonder what we would have done in their place. The Light Between Oceans follows twisting pathways of a mother's devotion, the law, and human relations right up to its final pages. A wonderful read.
Happy reading.
In the late 1890s, a woman moves with her new husband to a remote, desolate lighthouse near Big Sur, California, unprepared for the challenges and her growing fascination she faces for the island and its inhabitants, both animal and human.
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