The Light Between Oceans

A Novel

By: M. L. Stedman

Narrated by: Noah Taylor

Length: 10 hrs and 22 mins

Publisher's summary

A captivating, beautiful, and stunningly accomplished debut novel - the story of a lighthouse keeper and his wife who make one devastating choice that forever changes two worlds.

In 1918, after four harrowing years on the Western Front, Tom Sherbourne returns to Australia to take a job as the lighthouse keeper on remote Janus Rock. To this isolated island, where the supply boat comes only four times a year and shore leaves are granted every other year at best, Tom brings a young, bold, and loving wife, Isabel. Three years later, after two miscarriages and one stillbirth, the grieving Isabel is tending the grave of her newly lost infant when she hears a baby’s cries on the wind. A boat has washed up on shore carrying a dead man and a living baby. Tom, whose records as a lighthouse keeper are meticulous and whose moral principles have withstood a horrific war, wants to report the dead man and the infant immediately. But Isabel has taken the tiny baby to her breast. Against Tom’s judgment, they claim the child as their own and name her Lucy, but a rift begins to grow between them. When Lucy is two, Tom and Isabel return to the mainland and are reminded that there are other people in the world…and one of them is desperate to find her lost baby.

M.L. Stedman’s extraordinarily compelling characters, still trying to make sense of life in the wake of so much death in the war, are imperfect people seeking to find their north star in a world of incomprehensible complexity.

©2012 Grasshill Communications. (P)2012 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

“M.L. Stedman’s The Light Between Oceans is a beautiful novel about isolation and courage in the face of enormous loss. It gets into your heart stealthily, until you stop hoping the characters will make different choices and find you can only watch, transfixed, as every conceivable choice becomes an impossible one. I couldn’t look away from the page and then I couldn’t see it, through tears. It’s a stunning debut.” (Maile Meloy, author of Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It)

Get ready to cry...

What about Noah Taylor’s performance did you like?

I enjoyed the fact that his accent was local to the story's setting, but his sentences would sometimes trail off into nothing, making it difficult to hear all the details.

Any additional comments?

The story was engaging, though completely heartbreaking. I cried through at least half the book. Each character in the story carried a burden of profound sadness and I found myself empathizing with each one.

Awesome

This is an awesome story. You laugh you cry and then you can't wait to get to the end. The performance was very good doing all of the characters. His delivery was right on the money. Definitely an excellent storyline no wonder they made a movie. I highly recommend.

Well Crafted But Sad Story

Any additional comments?

This book is overall well executed as a story and audible performance. There were components of the story where suspending disbelief was a bit much but it suited the story line. I am glad I listened to it but I did not enjoy it as much as some others.

Touching and sad Australian story

I started by being irritated by the narration of this story partly because of the reviews I had read - a style that I would consider to be unusually festinant: But I eventually became accustomed to it and it took on the character of the central subject with his lugubrious way of storytelling. - the loner, the misunderstood, the villain that never was, the constant husband. His suppressed passion coming from an austere childhood and memories of the trenches in France. It was such a deeply sad story especially for anyone who has lost a child will relate to this. Little Lucy reminds us all that we have little control of our destiny whether or not we are loved greatly. But there was a resolution of sorts. Time healed something if this solution came in a parallel world. Unusually, I may go to this film to see if 'Tom' is re-created or totally remodelled. If he is, I may indeed now be disappointed. He (the narrator) seemed in the end to be an integral part of this book. A different Aussie than the stereotype. But whether you listen or read this book, although not literary, this is quite a special story you might not forget in a hurry.

Couldn't stop listening!!!

such a great book. Now I cannot wait to see the movie. It's happy and sad but just so good and well done. Really enjoyed it

Great story, crappy narrator

Loved the story, needs a new narrator though. Narrators voice started each sentence loud but trailed off so I could barely hear or understand him by the end of every sentence.

excellent

I enjoyed this book very much. I couldn't put it down. It was an excellent book.

Excellent in all ways. Couldn't stop listening; story grabs you & doesn't let you go

Unlike others, I thought the voice of the narrator added to the feel of the story. Glad I didn't see the movie before~~

Love this story

Loved this story. It was difficult to get into at first and the narrator speaks very quickly with a heavy Australian accent so that made it a bit challenging at first but loved it.

Maybe my expectations were too high...

I expected so much from this book after hearing people talk about it and what a tear-jerker it was. Maybe I should have read it instead of listening to it - in the slower paced audio format I had time to think about how underdeveloped and one dimensional the characters were. My experience was certainly affected by the poor narration - I almost gave up because of the Noah Taylor's low voice and tendency to drop the ends of his sentences.