Book Browse chose this book as the best book of 2012, as voted by its subscribers. It was available at our library here, so I requested it, picked it up this past Monday and finished it just this afternoon. It was the first book I've read in some time which I wanted to stay up late and finish it, even though it's not a mystery.
Set on an isolated island off the coast of Australia in 1926, Tom and Isabel have moved there to be the lighthouse keepers shortly after their marriage. Isabel suffers three miscarriages, so when a boat is washed ashore on the island with a dead man inside and a crying baby, Isabel claims the little girl as her own and persaudes Tom to not record the arrival of the boat, the man or the baby.
When the child is two years old, and a strong family unit has been created, the family returns to Australia to find that there is another claim on the child, and some decisions are made which forever change several lives.
The powerful bonds between a mother and child are explored, and as a mother, I found myself deeply involved emotionally with the women in this story, and identified closely with them throughout.
One of the comments about this novel is that reading it was an "exquisite" experience, and that sums up my opinion as well. When I first heard about the novel, I immediately thought of Joan Clark's Latitudes of Melt, a favorite book of mine set in Newfoundland, but this one takes a very different path, and a very successful one, particularly for a first-time author.
Highly recommended - have a kleenex or two handy!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment