First published 2012
Tom Sherbourne returns from the Western Front to tend the lighthouse on Janus Rock, an isolated Australian island where supply boats arrive once per season. He brings his spirited wife Isabel to this remote outpost. After Isabel suffers two miscarriages and a stillbirth, a boat washes ashore carrying a dead man and a crying infant. Tom wants to report the discovery immediately, following his strict moral code and meticulous record keeping. But Isabel cradles the baby and refuses to let go. Against Tom's better judgment, they raise the child as Lucy, their own daughter. Two years later, they return to the mainland and discover their decision has shattered another family. Tom and Isabel face an impossible choice between their love for Lucy and the devastating truth of what they have done. Stedman creates a moral puzzle with no clear solution, where doing right by one person means destroying another.
Genres: drama, family, romance, historical-fiction
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, moral-dilemma, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Janus Rock, Australia
Period: 20th-century
362 pages · Hardcover · Scribner
Content warnings: child-death, pregnancy-loss