A wonderful setting and a complex moral dilemma make this a good (if not all that gripping) read. 3.5/5 stars. 
 Review originally posted on my blog over at: https://clairehuston.wordpress.com/20... 
 I'll try and avoid spoilers, but anything mentioned in the blurb is fair game. 
 The story's setting and descriptions are the best thing about this book. The author has clearly done a lot of research into the young Australians who fought in WWI, the national lighthouse service and lighthouses themselves. I particularly enjoyed the little details about the lighthouse and lamp; the descriptions were often beautiful and always evocative. That said, there were a few passages which I found slightly over-written and which gave me simile whiplash (when you haven't quite recovered from the impact of one simile and the author hits you with another). 
 I like Tom, the main male character, and baby/toddler Lucy. I found them the most sympathetic and I cared about what happened to them. Unfortunately, I can't say the same about the main female characters: Isabel and Hannah. They were all emotion and nerves, which meant their actions and reactions were often extreme and knee-jerk. This also meant the drama slides into melodrama in places, particularly in Part 3. This final act is also the most repetitive and I started to skim-read sections describing the characters' feelings and thoughts - which they'd had a few times before - just to find out what would happen. 
 I think I would have found this book more enjoyable if I had been reading it specifically to discuss with others afterwards. The moral dilemmas would give a book club a lot to talk about. But, for all the difficult ethical questions the story raises, it wasn't particularly gripping. Perhaps because as soon as Tom and Isabel decide to adopt the baby you known things can't work out well and so the rest of the book is like watching a car crash happen in slow motion. 
 Overall: this is good but don't mistake it for a thriller. This is a ponderous, slightly melodramatic reflection on the consequences of making a morally dubious decision.