Rescuing the child from a certain death, bringing her to their dwelling and burying her father, is a decision, Tom makes, persuaded by the arguments of his wife, still raw with grief over a still-born. Result :loss, longing and a love which threatens to tear us apart from within!Ī boat washes up on the shore, carrying a dead man and a beautiful, bonny baby girl, all of a few months old. We make decisions which seem the best ones to make, at that point of time, but gradually become our own undoing. The novel here makes its readers realize, that to wish for your child whom you can love with all your heart and soul, is something so deeply entrenched in our psyche that we end up in a Catch-22 situation.

Ah! But that wasn’t to be since time and again Isabel is cruelly deprived of an infallible joy, because of her inability to successfully carry a child to term. Their cup of joy would have been complete had they been blessed with a child of their own. A meticulous man, he takes great care of the lighthouse, the logbook and his beloved, revelling in the joy his spirited wife and a capable homemaker brings to him. The book progresses with the two settling down to a quiet, love-filled life on the island. Still, he has neither weighed the love she bears for him nor her capacity to surprise him by her tenacity. After all, leaves are few and life on the island, a lonely affair. An ethical, strong and taciturn man, he is only too aware of at first the age disparity between him and Isabel and the fact that his posting as a lighthouse keeper on Janus rock, means she will have to forego all comforts, material and of familial support, if the two decide to get married. Meet Tom Sherbourne, an honourably discharged soldier, quelling ghosts of his past and meeting the love of his life, Isabel Graysmark. How can this debut novel by the Australian author M.L Stedman, focusing on a WW I veteran and his feisty wife, not pull at the deepest chords of anyone who has ever loved children, is what I leave the readers of my review to decide!

The Light Between Oceans, a poignant book about the choices we make courtesy the archetypal instincts driving the human race since the beginning of time. And sometimes, just when you think it’s done its worst, it comes back and takes another chunk.”

Sometimes it just bites right through you.

The light between oceans by ml stedman