Tag: historical fiction

Throwback Thursday: The Light Between Oceans by M L Stedman

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ThrowbackThursday

Throwback Thursday is a weekly meme hosted by Renee at It’s Book Talk. It’s designed as an opportunity to share old favourites as well as books that we’ve finally got around to reading that were published over a year ago. If you decide to take part, please link back to It’s Book Talk.

This week I’m revisiting a review of a book I read earlier this year as part of my From Page to Screen Challenge – The Light Between Oceans by M L Stedman. You can read my comparison of the book and the film here.

oceansAbout the Book

The year is 1926. After four harrowing years on the Western Front, young Tom Sherbourne takes up the post of lighthouse keeper on remote Janus Rock. In the small coastal town on his way to Janus, Tom meets the headstrong, vibrant Isabel. They fall in love, and on his first shore leave they marry, then return to Janus together—both eager to begin their life, cocooned from the rest of the world with just each other, the gulls, and the stars for company. Years later, after two miscarriages and one still birth, Isabel’s grief is all consuming. But one fateful, April morning she hears the sound of cries carried in on the wind: a small boat has washed ashore, its occupants a dead man and a squalling baby girl. Tom wants to report the boat immediately, but Isabel resists, pleading with him to put it off for just one day. Against Tom’s judgment, they claim the girl as their own and name her Lucy—a devastating, resounding choice that forever changes two worlds.

Format: ebook Publisher: Scribner Pages: 356
Publication: 31st July 2012 Genre: Historical Fiction

Purchase Links*
Amazon.co.uk ǀ Amazon.com
*links provided for convenience, not as part of any affiliate programme

 Find The Light Between Oceans on Goodreads

My Review

I found the story of Tom and Isabel emotionally engaging, even harrowing at times, as their longing to have a child is tragically denied them. The dilemma for the author is to make the reader understand and empathise with their decision to claim the rescued baby as their own. Isabel’s profound grief at her failed pregnancies, culminating in a kind of madness, is convincingly portrayed and it seems understandable that she should view the miracle of the baby as a “gift from God” to compensate for her loss.     From the reader’s first introduction to Tom, it is apparent he feels an immense sense of guilt – survivor’s guilt – that he should have survived the war unscathed when so many of his comrades did not. This overwhelming sense of guilt is the key to his decision to acquiesce to not reporting the boat, his actions when he learns the truth about the baby and, ultimately, his desire to protect Isabel from the consequences of their actions.

For me, the standout aspect of the book was the depiction of Janus in all its raw beauty and the guardian role of the lighthouse ‘slicing the darkness like a sword’. There is much imaginative and lyrical writing:

‘The water sloshed like white paint, milky-thick, the foam occasionally scraped off long enough to reveal a deep blue undercoat.’  

‘The wind continued its ancient vendetta against the windows, accompanied by the liquid thunder of waves.’

I have to admit that, once Janus was left behind, I found the story less compelling and Isabel’s ultimate choice didn’t completely convince me given all that had gone before.   I am rather averse to excessively sentimental endings and to me the final chapter read like it was designed to provide a “Hollywood” finale (as indeed it now has).

In three words: Emotional, lyrical, thought-provoking

Try something similar…Sarah Thornhill by Kate Grenville

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MLStedmanAbout the Author

M.L. Stedman was born and raised in Western Australia and now lives in London. The Light Between Oceans is her first novel.

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Blog Tour/Extract & Giveaway: The Floating Theatre by Martha Conway

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TheFloatingTheatreBlog tour

I’m delighted to host today’s stop on the blog tour for The Floating Theatre by Martha Conway. I have an extract from the book to share with you as well as my review.  

WinPlus…I’m thrilled to give two lucky people the chance to have their own copy of The Floating Theatre to read and enjoy. Click on the link below to enter the giveaway (open to UK, ROI and Europe only). The giveaway closes on 24th August 2017.

Enter the giveaway

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TheFloatingTheatreAbout the Book

In a nation divided by prejudice, everyone must take a side. When young seamstress May Bedloe is left alone and penniless on the shore of the Ohio, she finds work on the famous floating theatre that plies its trade along the river.  Her creativity and needlework skills quickly become invaluable and she settles in to life among the colourful troupe of actors. She finds friends, and possibly the promise of more… But cruising the border between the Confederate South and the ‘free’ North is fraught with danger. For the sake of a debt that must be repaid, May is compelled to transport secret passengers, under cover of darkness, across the river and on, along the underground railroad.  But as May’s secrets become harder to keep, she learns she must endanger those now dear to her. And to save the lives of others, she must risk her own…

Format: Hardcover Publisher: Bonnier Zaffre Pages: 352
Publication: 15th June 2017 Genre: Historical Fiction

Purchase Links*
Amazon.co.uk ǀ Amazon.com ǀ Barnes & Noble ǀ IndieBound
*links provided for convenience, not as part of any affiliate programme

Find The Floating Theatre on Goodreads

 

Extract from The Floating Theatre by Martha Conway

After my father died and my mother sold our dairy farm, there were not many occasions for me to go outside at night. Certainly not in New York with Comfort, or in Boston or Baltimore either. Sometimes, though, as a girl, if my father had to see to one of the cows or check on a batch of cheese, I would go with him to the barn in the moonlight. Night time, or I suppose I should say the dark outside, never frightened me. As a child I had the strange fancy that darkness was more honest than daylight, that the shrubs and trees and the creatures that lived among them were more themselves at night, and the ashy shade of the grass was in fact its true colour rather than the bright hue it took on during the day. Even the darkened river bellowing along below our house assumed its rightful character as it hurried past our farm. Perhaps at night I felt more like a spectator, and I suppose that was for me a comfortable role. I remember the smell of nicodemus flowers, which bloom after sunset, following my father and me as we walked to the barn.

Stepping into Leo’s rowboat that night and waiting while it stopped swaying from my movement, I was keenly aware of the deep colour that descends after the sun goes down, and of all the night noises: the cicadas, the soft gulps of wind, the creaking of the trees. I was glad for the noise, since it masked the sound of my oars pushing the boat away from the dock and the soft plash of the water as I rowed. Leo was right, the boat pulled a little to the right. The water around me shimmered like sealskin: a dark smooth expanse that once in a while caught the moonlight and then quickly absorbed it. At midnight I was supposed to be halfway across the river, where I would make my signal and then get a signal in return. That was all the instruction I got from the woman with the pink handkerchief—no letter with points A, B, and C.

I had to row backwards, of course. For a long time I could still see the squat chimneys of the Floating Theatre that ran up every two staterooms—my room shared its chimney with Hugo’s—each like a little neck topped by a Chinaman’s hat but no face. They seemed to be waiting for something. I pulled the oars back and then back again making a neat swoosh in the water like scissors cutting through fabric, and when I guessed that I was just about in the middle of the river I turned the boat around so that I was facing Kentucky and I took out my father’s watch.

The warm air settled palpably on my shoulders like a short felt cape while I waited for the last few minutes to pass. When it was exactly midnight, I got the gasoline lantern I’d brought along out from under the thwart and lit it. Then I counted to sixty and doused it.

My Review

I was drawn to this book by the description and, I have to admit, the gorgeous cover. I thoroughly enjoyed the story of May and the colourful characters of the Floating Theatre as they travel down river stopping at small towns to give performances to the local people. May’s involvement with the ‘underground railway’ forms an interesting subplot which introduces tension and a sense of jeopardy.

In May, the author has created a complicated character: rather naive, uncomfortable in social situations and someone who takes everything very literally. This helps to explain why May responds as she does to certain events in the narrative.  Because of her tendency to interpret things literally, May initially struggles to understand the concept of a theatrical performance where the objective is to seem ‘real’ when it is actually artificial. You can’t help giving a little silent cheer when she finally learns to suspend her disbelief and become immersed in what she is seeing on the stage in the way Hugo, the theatre owner, hoped she would.

‘But then, rather quickly if the actors are any good, something happens and somehow you drop into the fiction of the Italian countryside, and there you are. You forget all about the people around you because the only people that exist are the actors on stage, and the only world is the world they are playing out for you. You’ve lost yourself in the fiction.’

I received an advance reader copy courtesy of NetGalley and publishers, Bonnier Zaffre, in return for an honest review. [The book is published under the title The Underground River in the US.]

In three words: Enjoyable, dramatic, engaging

Try something similar…The Last Runaway by Tracy Chevalier

MarthaConwayAbout the Author

Martha Conway is the author of Thieving Forest, Sugarland, and 12 Bliss Street, which was nominated for an Edgar Award for Best First Novel. She’s received several awards for historical fiction, including the North American Book Award. Her short fiction has been published in the Iowa Review, the Carolina Quarterly, The Quarterly, Folio, and other journals.  Martha teaches creative writing for Stanford University’s Continuing Studies Program and UC Berkeley Extension.  Born in Cleveland, Ohio, Martha is one of seven sisters. She currently lives in San Francisco.

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