Comment

Jul 14, 2019EljayJohnson rated this title 2 out of 5 stars
Tom is a damaged Australian WWI war hero who returns with no hope for his life. He goes into the Lighthouse Service hoping the isolation will be a balm. He unexpectedly meets Isabel, the love of his life, they marry and take up residence on Janus, a remote rocky island with only themselves and the lighthouse as inhabitants. A baby shockingly washes up ashore in a small boat and Isabel, half-crazed by a series of miscarriages, manipulates Tom into keeping the baby against his conscience. While there is some lovely descriptive language at times and Stedman has a defter hand at creating some minor characters than her primary protagonists, to me this was a dressed up Jodi Picoult type (will they be found out? who will get the baby?? keep turning those pages!) book with some literary pretensions. Considering its reputation as a well-written weepfest, I was unmoved. But I certainly wanted to know what would happen next.