It is young, rebellious Morgan who meets Elizabeth through her own reckless actions, and it is Morgan who fills in historical gaps by reading to Elizabeth from old journals written by Elizabeth’s father. Elizabeth is elderly and has a grasp on much of the past, but she is blind. While the story moves between the two narrators, it also moves between two time frames – then and now – and uniquely, past and present are also traded off between the two narrators. It is a fascinating story, there are characters with deep and complex personalities, it takes place on various shores of the mighty, tempestuous, moody Lake Superior – and it is written with full command over the characters, locale, and story. This novel, with chapters alternating primarily between narrators Elizabeth and Morgan, is so full and satisfying. I do not recall ever needing tissues to mop up tears after reading the Author’s Notes at the end of a book. While the discovery of Morgan's connection sheds light onto her own family mysteries, the faded pages of the journals hold more questions than answers for Elizabeth, and threaten the very core of who she is. Entry by entry, these unlikely friends are drawn deep into a world far removed from their own-to Porphyry Island on Lake Superior, where Elizabeth’s father manned the lighthouse seventy years before.Īs the words on these musty pages come alive, Elizabeth and Morgan begin to realize that their fates are connected to the isolated island in ways they never dreamed. With the help of Morgan, a delinquent teenager performing community service, Elizabeth goes through the diaries, a journey through time that brings the two women closer together. No longer able to linger over her beloved books or gaze at the paintings that move her spirit, she fills the void with music and memories of her family-a past that suddenly becomes all too present when her late father's journals are found amid the ruins of an old shipwreck. As a deadly hurricane approaches, two women, living a century apart, will be linked forever by their instinctive acts of courage and love.Though her mind is still sharp, Elizabeth's eyes have failed. A discarded, half-finished portrait opens a window into Matilda’s family history. She is to stay with Harriet, a reclusive relative and assistant lighthouse keeper, until her baby is born. Nineteen-years-old and pregnant, Matilda Emmerson has been sent away from Ireland in disgrace. Just as George Emmerson captures Grace with his brushes, she in turn captures his heart.ġ938: Newport, Rhode Island. But far more precious than her unsought fame is the friendship that develops between Grace and a visiting artist. When she and her father rescue shipwreck survivors in a furious storm, Grace becomes celebrated throughout England, the subject of poems, ballads, and plays. Longstone Lighthouse on the Farne Islands has been Grace Darling’s home for all of her twenty-two years. I am just an ordinary young woman who did her duty.”ġ838: Northumberland, England. “ They call me a heroine, but I am not deserving of such accolades. From The New York Times bestselling author of The Girl Who Came Home comes a historical novel inspired by true events, and the extraordinary female lighthouse keepers of the past two hundred years.
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