The Light Between Oceans brings to the public the brilliance of an author named M.L. Stedman who tread the dangerous waters and sailed the literary world with a masterpiece that unmasks the future consequences – tragic or otherwise – of our decisions and actions.
In this debut novel, Stedman takes us to an island off the coast of mainland Australia and introduces us to Tom – a former soldier who walked away alive from the vicious atmosphere of guns and death – who serves as the lightkeeper of Janus Rock. The unassuming, quiet but highly perceptive Tom later brought his young wife Isabel to the island and there lived a happy couple with an island to themselves. Their excitement in starting a family of their own was crushed as Isabel suffered two miscarriages and a stillbirth. The world seemed bleak and hopeles and then… a dinghy was awashed by the shore – in Janus Rock of all places – and in it was a dead man and… a baby!
The beauty of this book lies in the complexity of its characters, the wonderful setting the author so wonderfully carved in the annals of literature, and the consequences that comes with every decision Tom and Isabel made in the course of time.
M.L. Stedman writes in words that speaks to the soul. She masterfully created a story, a realistic fiction that stirs the very core of a human being. Before long, you find yourself drawn to the lives of the people involved and thrown in a moral quandary of telling or keeping the truth, of exacting revenge or choosing forgiveness, of choosing to love after all the pain.
Stedman’s writing is poetry and song rolled up in a novel. You can taste the bitterness of the hurt, you can smell the sweet scent of love, you can see the vision of peace and tranquility, you can hear the harsh judgement of the rascists, you can feel the relief of a troubled heart after years of holding back.
The way Stedman laid out this story is nothing short of amazing and spectacular. She knew what she was doing, she knew what she was talking about, she knew how to tell a story and damn right, she does it really well. Each chapter does not give away what will happen next so you find yourself turning one page after another, with cold palms eagerly anticipating what will take place in the pages that follow. All 343 pages of this novel is worthy a night of no sleep as you navigate deep emotional trenches and the rugged workings of the complicated minds.
As the novel eases to its end, this is where you find yourself affected by the turn of events, when you realize the gravity of the situations, making you wish you would never get entangled in a mess that wreak havoc in the lives of so many individuals and families.
The Light Between Oceans should not be missed as part of your 2016 reading list. Read it before Michael Fassbender, Rachel Weisz, and Alicia Vikander put face into the characters in its movie adaptation by DreamWorks. After all – to the printed material loyalist that is me – the book is often better than the movie.
