The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman | Book Review

The Light Between Oceans is about making the wrong decisions. After four harrowing years on the Western Front, Tom Sherbourne returns to Australia and takes a job as the lighthouse keeper on Janus Rock. To this isolated island, where the supply boat comes once a season, 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 in the wind. A boat has washed up onshore carrying a dead man and a living baby. The choices Tom and Isabel make about this event will change their lives forever.

The Light Between Oceans is a tragic story studying the choices we make and how they can have long-lasting repercussions.

The Light Between Oceans Is All About Making Wrong Decisions

The Lights Between Oceans begins In the early 1900s. Tom Sherbourne takes a job as the lighthouse keeper on Janus Rock, nearly half a day’s journey from the Australian coast.

The island is very isolated, and there are few visitors. The supply boat comes once a season.

Tom marries Isabel, a young and devoted wife. Their extreme physical isolation from the rest of the world means that they depend on each other for everything.

After Isabel suffers two miscarriages and one stillbirth, the grieving Isabel hears a baby’s cries in the wind.

A boat washes up onshore carrying a dead man and a living baby. Isobel makes a critical decision: she wants to keep this baby! After all, who would know?

Tom does not approve, but Isabel has been so wracked with depression over losing her other children that he finally acquiesces. Tom never stops regretting the decision, however.

Final Analysis

This decision leads to a heartbreaking series of events that will change their lives forever. His guilt increases over the years until he has to decide whether to tell the authorities.

The story was depressing, but so well written that I really wanted to find out what happened.

What prices would Tom and Isabel pay for the decision to keep someone else’s baby? They are not bad people at all; they just make serious lapses in judgment.

I found the final chapters convincing in tying up the storyline.

The Light Between Oceans is poetically written but it is overwhelmingly sad.

You can read the review of this book by Kirkus Reviews.

You can also read my review of Expiation by Greg Messel.

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