This novel is deep, poignant, moving, and emotional. I found myself intrigued by both stories being told, and yearned to discover where they would lead. I was captivated by the scenery portrayed so beautifully, I could envision the old lighthouse, the crumbling cliff, the churning waters below. The scenery itself and The Keeper both reminded me of somewhere I have been before - Bar Harbor, Maine maybe? The grief, sorrow, and pain described were so deep, yet so beautiful, and prompted continuous inner thought and speculation. I did find myself skimming through parts that were just too slow moving and not enough substance, but I am glad I stuck with it and continued to read it because it picked up considerably and I was engrossed yet again. Definitely a good book club pick, there is so much to discuss and so many areas that would prompt different reflections and insights.

Did not finish, just couldn't get into the story. The writing style was very boring, and the chapters were too short.

For the most part I have to admit I did enjoyed this book. It was deep and meaningful and I shed quite a few tears as I really felt for the characters, I mean who wouldn’t with all that they endured. I feel the characters could have been more clearly identified from the start as I got a little muddled trying to decipher who was who. I truly felt for Jack and Sarah and I felt an echo of Sarai, later Sarah, wife of Abraham from the Old Testament as she too struggled to conceive until she was blessed at a very old age with Isaac, her son. Their pain and anguish went to the core of this novel. The inability to conceive, depression, domestic abuse, these themes were dealt with in great depth in a very heart-felt manner. The novel didn’t flow too smoothly at times though, something which took away from my enjoyment of the book. I also felt that the ending of the novel could have been a little stronger. Other than that though this was quite a good

“The stories we tell define us. So do the stories we don’t tell and the ones we never finish.”

Sarah and Jack Bramer are a young couple who are desperate to have a child. Or at least Sarah is… After seven years of disappointment, their relationship has reached a crisis point. Sarah is a mixed race British woman. Jack is an American. Lately, his love for her has taken a sour turn. Sarah knows that this is her last chance to become pregnant. She wants to know, yet she doesn’t …. She runs away to her favourite place on the South Downs to come to terms with her rampant emotions. Jack, goes in search of her. He is distraught, manic, and increasingly desperate.

His name is Gabriel Keane, but they call him the ‘Keeper’. A man in his forties, he lives alone in a decommissioned lighthouse located at Beachy Head, East Sussex. He is a raggedy, handsome, and battered man.

The Keeper does not keep a light. He keeps sorrow, heartache, and a crippling sadness. He mourns for his love – Maria an artist, who went by the name of Rí (rhymes with free).

“It’s so hard to be here without her, but he can’t leave, because she is still here, at least in his head. His heart. Her things in the tower, the art she made.”

Before he came here, the Keeper was a war correspondent, then an investigative journalist. Now, he questions no one. All of the sad stories he keeps locked away in his mind. From long experience, he is a good listener.

When the grieving Keeper meets up with the emotional fragile Sarah, both lives will be forever changed.

The place. The striking white chalk cliffs of the South Downs. A place where people come to admire the beauty. A place where others come to end their lives. In fact, this area is the third most common suicide location in the world! So many people come to this area to commit suicide that there are regular patrols to try to locate and stop potential cliff jumpers.

MY THOUGHTS

What a delightful surprise this novel was. Slow-paced, literary fiction that cover themes of loss, hope, childlessness, suicide, and most of all… the ways that grief and bereavement can shape a life.

The characters are written with deep empathy and compassion. The setting was rendered with affection which caused the reader to feel as if they are ‘there’.

“My place. There is a symmetry that appeals. The sea and the sky. The white and the green, the chalk and the down. The drop and the rise. Falling and rising.”

I highly recommend this novel to anyone who reads and cherishes moving, well-written, thoughtful, literary fiction. Loved it!

Thank you Net Galley for the ARC
This book tackles many issues like infertility, domestic abuse, depression & suicide.
The story revolves around a cliff near a lighthouse where people come to commit suicide. The author intertwines two stories, one of Jack and the other of the Light Keeper. I felt the book was slow paced in the beginning but it does get better eventually. The stories within the story are easy to understand and imagine. A nice book all in all. Makes you feel grateful for the little things we take for granted.

I really like the theme of this book with all its sadness. But I could not finish this book, I am sorry. The narrative style is not very gripping and the characters are rather pale, too. Additionally to this is the formatting horrible. The errors turn this book in pure torture to read. I tried two times to read this, but I just can't.

Couldn't finish this one - didn't realize the subject matter would be so fragile and hard to read. Perhaps there's an audience for this story but I'm not the one. Nice book cover though.

This is a difficult read- not because of the writing, which is exceptional, but the subject matter of losses so great that the characters find themselves on the edge of a cliff contemplating suicide.
The two opposing views of Sarah and Jack about their circumstance, their relationship and their difficulties are really cleverly written, making it hard to decide who is telling the truth, and if their truth is the whole story.
The Keeper is also living on the edge following a great loss of his own and becomes embroiled in Sarahs story very reluctantly.
Be warned, the story moves at a pace that keeps you reading long into the night to try and reach a point you feel comfortable leaving the characters unguarded!

The setting of Beachy Head was compelling. Lighthouses and lighthousekeepers have always intrigued me, so I was quite interested to find out where this one led us to and to find out if his loneliness was quelled. I also liked the way the plot did a lot of reveals of characters' past, which lent a lot of meaning and clarity to the present.
Overall I enjoyed the book, could have been precised a little, but had some twists and turns that kept my interest. An easy summer read.

This book was not for me. I really just could not get into it. A lot of the narrative is a glimpse inside someone's head, their thoughts and feelings, but whose? I was constantly confused by who the character was until some detail would illuminate it. and not in a great lightbulb moment way but in a very frustrating, I don't want to carry on with this book kind of way. Also, the build up to the main story takes over half of the book. The edistor should have had robust words with Cole MOreton and some rewriting work to maintain the balance oft he narrative would have helped. Thebook deals with IVF, rape, suicide, grim themes which perhaps I wasn't quite in the right head space to deal with. Hmm, some great writing inparts but too much work and doesn't quite hang together as a whole. Sorry.

This review is based on the digital copy of The Light Keeper which I received courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher. This novel is strong on deeply emotional triggers around infertility, abuse, rape, suicide, death and depression. Overall I felt the story was a bit disjointed and hard to follow. I did enjoy parts of the story but felt the end was rushed.

#TheLightKeeper #NetGalley

DNF - from reading the synopsis I thought this would be a really good, heartfelt and emotional read. However, it was clear from the beginning that if I carried on with this story that I would end up very, very confused. The writing was choppy, I did not know who’s head I was in and who was narrating, and there were way too many holes at the start for me to get my head around and to continue.

I am sorry but this book was just not for me. I could not get into it at all. I struggled to stay interested in it. Sorry.

Thank you to Netgalley for my copy.

This review is based on an advance copy of The Light Keeper provided with thanks from the author, Netgalley and Marylebone House. This novel is strong on deeply emotional triggers around infertility, abuse, rape, suicide, death and depression.

The Light Keeper is a story with many interlinking threads all based around a lighthouse and its Keeper teetering on the edge of a bold and dramatic landscape that provide the setting for the many stories in this book. The stories weave around the lives of those lost and broken some of whom come to end their lives at Beachy Head. We meet Jack whose wife Sarah has gone missing and we meet a cast of characters in his search for her including the lighthouse keeper.

In the copy I received there were a range of formatting and copy issues which made it difficult for me to fully immerse myself in the story. This definitely affected my initial impressions and also detracted from the flow of the book.

The premise of the story is good and there was some prose that I enjoyed very much. At times the characters did not feel fully developed and their actions and reactions were at odds with the impression's I built over time getting to know them. There were moments I wanted more details to really take me into the current lives, and there were times that unnecessary and repetitive reflections and backstory detracted from the pace of the novel.

There were opportunities to develop and fine tune the Guardians so they didn't seem so disjointed from the story, and without giving any spoilers there was scope to heighten tension and create a sense of urgency around the reason why there were so many suicides. The mystery surrounding them conflicted with the search for Sarah and was confusing.

Overall I liked the premise of the book and aspects of it were strong, however the plot at times did not feel connected and some chapters felt like short stories within the setting and not part of the overall plot.

If you enjoy darker fiction and you have the frame of mind to explore daring subject matter then this thought provoking novel may be worth reading.

I wish I could recommend this book but unfortunately I cannot. The plot is there but somehow it did not capture my attention. The focus keeps jumping from spot to spot and it is difficult to get a grasp of the story. In addition, the technical editing of the book is badly done which makes it a bit hard to read as the text varies in size and placement.

Ok, firstly I would like to say thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for allowing me to review this book. That said, I wish I could be more positive but I simply can't.

Sarah is going through IVF unsuccessfully, her husband Jack is unhinged with worry and the mysterious Keeper of the title just wants everyone to go away.

The premise is good and thought through. The issues at hand are serious but I am afraid the plot is all over the place. The perspectives jump from one to another and the copy I received was extremely badly formatted so it was hard to keep up.

As I said the issues are serious but I am afraid the author may have missed the mark completely. I myself have suffered with some of the issues mentioned and I just felt ill at ease reading the whole thing, which I will be honest I was close to DNF'ing at several points.

All in all, I am sorry to say that I cannot recommend this book.

Lovely feel good read. I really enjoyed reading this one. Losing myself in the location of this one. It was interesting and hard to put down

Unfortunately this book just wasn’t for me. I found the characters uninteresting and the plot developed far too slowly.

THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS

This was a very confused book, I found it difficult to follow for many reason. It felt, though, like Moreton wasn’t really sure what the point of the story was – what was he actually trying to say?

The first obstacle I found was the formatting – I thought at first it was an issue with my downloaded copy or my kindle but reading other reviews suggests that it is a formatting problem with the ARC. I understand that this is not a finale published version so the formatting errors may be fixed before publication but it did make it difficult to read. The text constantly changing size and font was distracting and the blank numbered pages broke up important events and passages of the book – making dramatic scenes lose their sense of importance.
I actually almost gave up reading about 20% into the book but I decided I couldn’t really give a fair review if I hadn’t finished the book.

To be honest I didn’t actually like any of the characters. Jack was, even before we found out he was physically abusive was erratic and wholly unlikable. I never understood what Sarah saw in him.
The book spent so long in Gabe’s POV but how much did we really learn about him?

Another thing I found difficult to understand overall was the length. It seemed that the first 60% of the book could be removed and it would still make sense. I get building up a sense of place and world; character development etc. but Moreton doesn’t really do that. Because by 60% of the way in, when the action actually happens how much do we actually know about the world or characters?

So onto the actual action; mentions are made throughout the book of an increased rate of suicide at The Downs – the blurb on the book suggests that maybe Gabe has something to do with it, and something to do with Sarah’s disappearance – but when we finally get down to it he has no great secret. It’s suddenly Magda of all people. It wasn’t until at least halfway through the book that we are properly introduced to any of the Guardians – there is no proper build up or any real mystery regarding the deaths – or how it actually connects to the story as the underlying plot isn’t actually affected by that storyline.

So the additional 60% that I think can go? We got a lot of backstory of Gabe’s but nothing was really said. Again and again we’re told that he’s staying there because of Rí and how he’s so jaded and depressed but then a couple of chapters later it switches up to how happy he is there and how he couldn’t imagine being happy anywhere else? If Gabe is meant to be depressed or suffering from a mental illness it is not portrayed well, at all.

I didn’t care about the characters; like I say I didn’t like them so when it came right down to the climax it was just anti-climactic in a way. It was just boring really.

I can’t say I would recommend this book.

Thank you for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This was well written, clever, full bodied and I should have really enjoyed it, yet I didn't. The beginning of the novel was so disjointed and the light keepers relationship with his dead wife so bizarre I just found myself not caring about the characters. And you have to like the characters! I did read it til the end, although I skipped so much to find the storyline that appealed to me. There were moments of beauty and deep emotion within the disjointment and a more literary inclined reader may enjoy the style.