The Light Between the Oceans

This is an emotionally difficult book to read.  I feel I need to say that first, because while this is beautifully written, it will leave you shaken.  It is not always easy to know what is right and what is wrong, and the characters in this story struggle mightily with this dilema.  "Right and wrong can be like bloody snakes: so tangled up that you can't tell which is which until you've shot 'em both, and then it's too late."

Tom Sherbourne returns from World War I to Australia and takes up a post as a lighthouse keeper on a remote island of the coast.  He convinces his love Isabel to marry him, and together they live many happy years on the island.  After many miscarriages Isabel's spirits begin to wain when a boat washes up on shore with a dead man and a baby, very much alive.  Rather then report the accident, Tom and Isabel decide to raise the baby on their own.  Over time they convince themselves that they did the right thing.  On a journey to the main land sometime later they meet the true mother of the baby, mourning the loss of her husband, and still searching for the baby she feels must have survived.

Kirkus Reviews starred (July 15, 2012)

The miraculous arrival of a child in the life of a barren couple delivers profound love but also the seeds of destruction. Moral dilemmas don't come more exquisite than the one around which Australian novelist Stedman constructs her debut. Tom Sherbourne returns to Australia emotionally scarred after distinguished service in World War I, so the solitary work of a lighthouse keeper on remote Janus Rock is attractive. Unexpectedly, Tom finds a partner on the mainland, Isabel; they marry and hope to start a family. But Isabel suffers miscarriages then loses a premature baby. Two weeks after that last catastrophe, a dinghy washes ashore containing a man's body and a crying infant. Isabel wants to keep the child, which she sees as a gift from God; Tom wants to act correctly and tell the authorities. But Isabel's joy in the baby is so immense and the prospect of giving her up so destructive, that Tom gives way. Years later, on a rare visit to the mainland, the couple learns about Hannah Roennfeldt, who lost her husband and baby at sea. Now guilt eats away at Tom, and when the truth does emerge, he takes the blame, leading to more moral self-examination and a cliffhanging conclusion. A polished, cleverly constructed and very precisely calculated first novel.