Tom has worked on the lights before, in short stints to relieve the permanent keepers. As a decorated veteran of the Great War, Tom appears to be someone who can be trusted with the responsibility though he wears the respect he is shown awkwardly.

Working on the lights and acting for the safety of men at sea is a huge responsibility given to a trusted few. Though you could never say that anyone is suited to life on Janus, Tom, a man of few words who keeps to himself, just might make it work. Tom is a simple, hardworking man and as tough as they come. They have their doubts about Tom Sherbourne, the new keeper, when he arrives, but they can’t deny that he is tough. They believe you’d have to be crazy to want to work in such conditions where even the toughest would struggle. The locals in the small town of Port Partageuse on the mainland are not surprised.

The current lighthouse keeper on Janus has been relieved of his duty the isolation and harsh conditions taking its toll on his sanity. A graveyard of shipwreck victims occupies a part of the island and, to protect the difficult trade route from further disaster, a lighthouse now dominates small Janus. Barely large enough to sustain a living for a few people, Janus inhabits troubled waters where the Indian Ocean and the Southern Ocean meet. Janus Rock is a tiny island off the south-western coast of Australia. A story of characters facing difficult moral choices, the reader’s admiration for this novel will have a lot to do with their ability to sympathise with the characters fateful decisions. As well as the intriguing story, the novel is laden with the ghosts of the First World War. Well-crafted, it is a light read that carries considerable emotional weight and sits comfortably on the frontier between popular and literary fiction. The Light Between Oceans is an admirable debut novel, soon to be released as a film starring Michael Fassbender, Rachel Weisz and Alicia Vikander.

The light between oceans novel