Gina’s Book Club Recap: The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman

 

The meeting was held at my home this month. I was very excited. My sister-in-law helped me host since her house is not in our neighborhood, and the woman knows how to host. She’s way better at it than I am. We went to Trader Joe’s and purchased every tasty morsel you could think of to nibble. My husband selected some wine and we were in business.

The Light Between Oceans made us all want to cling to our children a little harder. We tried to imagine what it would be like to have our child taken from us and raised by another. It’s a heartbreaking thought—a thought that haunts you throughout this novel.

Most of us agreed that it was Isabel that we felt badly for and tried to understand. I think any woman could respond to a fellow woman struggling to become a mother. And I know there are a few of us in the club that had our battles with conceiving.

This book left us feeling emotional, but we were all glad we read it.

The Light Between Oceans 
written by M. L. Stedman
published by Scribner, 2012

find it here: (affiliate links) Barnes & Noble (Nook) (print), Amazon, iBooks, Book Depository, Goodreads

Read Gina’s 5-star review here.

About the book – from Goodreads: After four harrowing years on the Western Front, Tom Sherbourne returns to Australia and takes 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.

M. L. Stedman’s mesmerizing, beautifully written novel seduces us into accommodating Isabel’s decision to keep this “gift from God.” And we are swept into a story about extraordinarily compelling characters seeking to find their North Star in a world where there is no right answer, where justice for one person is another’s tragic loss.

The Light Between Oceans is exquisite and unforgettable, a deeply moving novel.

If you belong to a book group, please tell us about what you’re reading in the comments.