This review is not my words except for the last paragraph. The beginning was teen off publishers website and the rest up until the end, was taken from the website: simplystated.realsimple.com 
 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 and shore leaves are granted every other year at best, 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, whose records as a lighthouse keeper are meticulous and whose moral principles have withstood a horrific war, wants to report the man and infant immediately. But Isabel has taken the tiny baby to her breast. 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. 
 M. L. Stedman's mesmerizing, beautifully written novel seduces us into accommodating Isabel's decision to keep this "gift from God." And we are swept into a story about extraordinarily compelling characters seeking to find their North Star in a world where there is no right answer, where justice for one person is another's tragic loss. 
 Welcome to the third and final discussion of The Light Between Oceans. I pretty much read this last section in a single sitting. I couldn't wait to find out what would become of poor little Lucy-Grace. On a whole, I thought this was a beautiful, haunting novel--I hope you all would agree! 
 As I read through Part 3, I found myself feeling guilty that a part of me kept hoping Lucy-Grace would find her way back to Tom and Isabel. Just as Isabel was the only mother that the child knew, Tom and Isabel were the only parents that I, as a reader, knew. I was almost as resistant to accepting Hannah as Lucy-Grace was herself. I know that Hannah was completely guiltless, but I kept rooting against her--which made me feel incredibly guilty, since I knew that I wasn't being fair. What did you think? Did you find yourself hoping that Lucy-Grace would find her way back to Tom and Isabel? 
 As for Hannah, my heart all but broke every time Lucy-Grace rejected her. Hannah wanted so desperately to be reunited with her daughter, and the child who was finally returned to her bore no resemblance to the child she had been mourning for years. Still, I struggled to understand Hannah's decision to return Lucy-Grace to Isabel. Perhaps I can't begin to understand Hannah's pain, but I was shocked that she could be driven to give up her only child to a virtual stranger. Were you able to understand Hannah's decision? 
 I was increasingly frustrated with Isabel in Parts 2 and 3, but I do think she redeemed herself by the end of the novel. I recognize that she loved Lucy-Grace fiercely and felt betrayed by Tom, but I was still stunned that she would go so far as to let people believe that Tom was physically abusive. Her selfishness seemed to know no bounds. It is only at the end, when an exasperated Hannah considered giving Lucy-Grace back to her, that Isabel realized how far she has strayed from the loving, openhearted wife and mother she had once been. I was pleasantly surprised when Isabel rushed down to the police station to corroborate Tom's story, and I could feel the bond between them reassert itself as Tom tore himself free of his handcuffs and embraced his wife. Despite all of their heartache, they still clearly felt a raw, eternal love for each other. Were you surprised when Isabel chose to tell the truth? Did that redeem her in your eyes? 
 One last thought: After last week's post, there was some discussion about Hannah turning out to be the woman from the boat. Some readers were happy to see the woman from the boat reappear, and others didn't like the device. A few commenters who had read ahead cautioned everyone to withhold judgment until we had finished the book. Now that you've read Part 3, do you think that Hannah should have been the woman from the boat? Personally, I didn't like that Hannah was the nameless woman from Part 1. After Tom was released from his shortened sentence, Hannah told him that their history was part of why she'd entered her plea for leniency. While she was struggling to make the decision, though, she was thinking not about Tom but about how her late husband would have wanted her to forgive the Sherbournes. I think she had reason to ask for leniency even without the boat incident. What's your take? 
 From what I remember, Isabel is the one that talked Tom into keeping the child. Then, he, when he comes out with it, puts all the onus n himself. That it was his decision to keep the baby and he forced her to go along with it. she's so hurt by his "betrayal" that she lets him sit a long while in jail with the cloud of murder hangin over him. In fact, if she won't corroborate his story, he's going to prison. Isabel takes forever to do the right thing but she finally corroborates his story and she finally forgives him. The baby...er..toddler endsnupmwith her true mom, Hannah, and the Sherbournes move away and live their lives rebuilding, forgetting. But they live their life and Tom outlives Isabel and at the end, Lucy-grace comes to visit Tom with her baby and thanks him, forgives them, rehashes le memories with him. That sort of thing. Promises to visit again. Understands their decision and recalls happy memories of growin up on Janus rock.