First piece of advice: if you hypothetically happen to already be a crazy ball of PMS-ing emotions, maybe give this one a pass until next week. Unless you’re a fan of messy, snotty, tears. Hypothetically.
This book centres on Tom and his wife Isabel, just after WWI. Tom is a lighthouse keeper on a remote island off the coast of Australia- isolated from anyone except his wife; a supply boat comes every three months, and they get to visit the mainland once every three years.
The young couple is happy, thriving in this simple but fulfilling life… until the weight of infertility (multiple miscarriages and a still birth) starts adding strain. Shortly after their most recent loss, a boat is shipwrecked on the island, carrying a deceased man and a very much alive infant girl.
They take the baby in (Isabel with great enthusiasm, Tom with great reluctance), and raise her as their own. But they aren’t the only ones who love this child, and the book very much becomes about the consequences of good people making bad decisions (even if they are for the right reasons).
Sweet fancy Moses, this book wreaked havoc on my emotions. I didn’t know which character I sympathized with more. I wanted a happy ending for everyone!
It was a great read- athough someone struggling with infertility and loss might find it difficult and triggering. That’s not directly part of my own story and I was still in tears reading this. So yeah. Be ye forewarned. But on a whole, it was a fantastic story.
This is one of those books that I read, it destroyed me, I loved it, but I can never make myself actually recommend.
So good.
yep, that’s an accurate statement…. because in recommending this, you’re really saying to a friend, “i want to destroy your heart and see you cry”. ;)