The Light Between Oceans

After the horrors of the Great War, Tom Sherbourne takes the loneliest job he can find: lighthouse keeper on Janus Rock, a windswept island off the coast of Western Australia, half a day's boat ride from the mainland. He brings with him his young, spirited wife, Isabel, and for a while the isolation is a kind of peace — until two miscarriages and a stillbirth leave Isabel hollowed by grief.

Then, weeks later, a boat washes ashore carrying a dead man and a living infant. Isabel is certain the baby is a gift; Tom, bound by duty and conscience, knows they should report it. The choice they make in that moment will bind them to a lie, and to another grieving family on the mainland, in ways that can only end in heartbreak.

M.L. Stedman's luminous debut is a moral drama about love, loss, and the impossible arithmetic of doing wrong for the right reasons.