M.L. Stedman’s heartbreaking emotional rollercoaster The Light Between Oceans captivated readers in 2012 with its brutally honest betrayal of loss and love. Now a major motion picture starring Michael Fassbender and Alicia Vikander, The Light Between Oceans tells the story of an Australian couple, fraught with infertility and miscarriages, who find a baby in a boat and raise her as their own. Their choice is one with reverberations they could have never guessed. If you enjoy literary fiction with large ramifications, try these books to read if you like The Light Between Oceans.
Books to Read if You Like The Light Between Oceans
An Exaltation of Larks
Suanne Laqueur
Release Date: November 22, 2016
When someone hears the numbers ‘9/11’ there are numerous images that spring to mind. For Alejandro Penda, it is 1973 and he is 11 years old watching as Chile falls to a military coup. It is the beginning of his new life filled with grief for his parents. For Javier Landes it’s 2001 and outside his apartment window, New York City falls to terrorism. It is when his life went from male escort to the guardian of his orphaned nephew. Alex and Jav first met in their twenties and when they meet again in their forties they discover how similar their life experiences have been and how vibrantly they have been shaped by their different 9/11’s.
Buy on AmazonBuy NookBuy on iTunesThe Secret Wife
Gill Paul
Release Date: August 25, 2016
1914: Russia is on the brink of collapse and the entire Romanov family is in danger. Grand Duchess Tatiana’s affair with cavalry officer Dmitri may have seemed like the biggest scandal but then history takes a disastrous turn. 2016: Kitty Fisher in attempt to escape her life in London runs away to her great-grandfather Dmitri’s cabin in America. There she unearths a startling family secret reaching back decades. As she uncovers more and more of a heartbreaking love story, she wrestles with her own heartbreak in her own time.
Buy on AmazonBuy NookBuy on iTunesThe Moonlit Garden
Corina Bomann
Release Date: February 1, 2016
Lilly Kaiser has grown content with her solitary, uncomplicated lifestyle after becoming a widow at such a young age. So when a stranger delivers a violin to her antiques shop in Berlin and says that it is now hers, she’s dumbfounded. She has no idea who would leave her such a rare instrument. Along with her best friend, Elle, and the handsome musicologist Gabriel Thorton, Lilly sets out to uncover the violin’s story. They follow the instrument’s history from England to Italy to Indonesia until they learn the identity of one of the owners: Rose Gallway. She was a gorgeous woman who once played concerts for the Sumatra’s colonial elite until, one day, she disappeared. Taken by the story, Lilly digs deeper only to discover a connection to her own life that has her reevaluating everything.
Buy on AmazonThe German Girl
Armando Lucas Correa
Release Date: October 18, 2016
Twelve-year-old Hannah Rosenthal lived a charmed life in Berlin until everything changed in 1939. Her family is no longer welcome in a city that once felt like home. Hope comes in the form of the S.S. St. Louis offering Jews safe passage out of Germany. After a frantic search for visas, the Rosenthals and their best friends the Martins depart for salvation in Havana. They enjoy life on board for awhile until rumors that Cuba may not be what was promised to them reach their ears. Seventy years later, Anna Rosen receives a package from an unknown relative in Cuba: her great-aunt Hannah. The contents of the package inspire her and her mother to set out to find the truth about their family’s tragic past.
Buy on AmazonBuy NookBuy iBookThe Whiskey Sea
Release Date: August 23, 2016
Newly orphaned, Frieda Hope is determined to make a better life for her and her sister, Bea. The girls are taken in by a kind fisherman named Silver and soon Frieda finds herself feeling at home. When Silver sells his fishing boat to WWI veteran Sam Hicks, thinking Sam would be a fine husband for Frieda, she’s outraged. But Frieda manages to talk Sam into teaching her to repair boat engines instead, so she has a trade of her own and won’t have to marry. But Frieda soon discovers that a mechanic’s salary won’t support her and her sister and is pursuaded to try rumrunning to New York City. While risking her life in some of the most dangerous but lucrative waters, she meets a handsome Ivy Leaguer who is only in rumrunning for the thrill. As the danger increases, will she be able to find her way back to solid ground?
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It Is Well
James D. Shipman
Release Date: November 1, 2016
Jonathan Beecher, a middle-aged widower and small-town store owner, has had a lot of hardships lately. As the bombing of Pearl Harbor plunges the US into WWII, Jonathan’s family is ripped apart. His eldest son is trapped on a Japanese-occupied island in the pacific. His youngest son, ignoring his pleas, joins the army. And his bright daughter who he had such high hopes for, decides to elope with a brutally abusive man. Along with such strife comes financial losses that fill Jonathan’s head with doubt. In the midst of the pain, he meets Sarah, a widow herself, who with her kindness and optimism brings a light back into Jonathan’s life he thought long gone. But his new happiness is racked with guilt and he struggles to remain faithful to his late wife.
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