The Light Between Oceans - Hardcover

"A beautifully delineated tale of love and loss, right and wrong, and what we will do for the happiness of those most dear."--Tova Beiser "The Boston Globe "

"Elegantly rendered...heart-wrenching...the relationship between Tom and Isabel, in particular, is beautifully drawn."--Elysa Gardner "USA Today "

"An extraordinary and heart-rending book about good people, tragic decisions and the beauty found in each of them."--Markus Zusak, author of The Book Thief

"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

"M.L. Stedman, a spectacularly sure storyteller, swept me to a remote island nearly a century ago, where a lighthouse keeper and his wife make a choice that shatters many lives, including their own. This is a novel in which justice for one character means another's tragic loss, and we care desperately for both. Reading The Light Between Oceans is a total-immersion experience, extraordinarily moving."--Monica Ali, author of Brick Lane and Untold Story

"Irresistible...seductive...a high concept plot that keeps you riveted from the first page."--Sara Nelson, O, the Oprah magazine

"Haunting...Stedman draws the reader into her emotionally complex story right from the beginning, with lush descriptions of this savage and beautiful landscape, and vivid characters with whom we can readily empathize. Hers is a stunning and memorable debut."--Booklist, starred review

"[Stedman sets] the stage beautifully to allow for a heart-wrenching moral dilemma to play out... Most impressive is the subtle yet profound maturation of Isabel and Tom as characters."--Publishers Weekly, starred review

"The miraculous arrival of a child in the life of a barren couple delivers profound love but also the seeds of destruction. Moral dilemmas don't come more exquisite than the one around which Australian novelist Stedman constructs her debut."--Kirkus Reviews, starred review

"This heartbreaking debut from M L Stedman is a gem of a book that you'll have trouble putting down"--Good Housekeeping

The years-long New York Times bestseller soon to be a major motion picture from Spielberg’s Dreamworks that is “irresistible...seductive...with a high concept plot that keeps you riveted from the first page” (O, The Oprah Magazine).

After four harrowing years on the Western Front, Tom Sherbourne returns to Australia and takes a job as the lighthouse keeper on Janus Rock, nearly half a day’s journey from the coast. To this isolated island, where the supply boat comes once a season, Tom brings a young, bold, and loving wife, Isabel. Years later, after two miscarriages and one stillbirth, the grieving Isabel hears a baby’s cries on the wind. A boat has washed up onshore carrying a dead man and a living baby.

Tom, who keeps meticulous records and whose moral principles have withstood a horrific war, wants to report the man and infant immediately. But Isabel insists the baby is a “gift from God,” and against Tom’s judgment, they claim her as their own and name her Lucy. When she is two, Tom and Isabel return to the mainland and are reminded that there are other people in the world. Their choice has devastated one of them.