The Light between Oceans, by ML Stedman

On remote Janus island off the WA coast, World War I veteran Tom Sherbourne tends the lighthouse station poised between the Indian and Southern Oceans. He is lucky enough to meet a woman willing to share the splendid isolation, but their love story is marred by an inability to have a child. When a baby is washed ashore, it looks like their life and love could be back on track, what could possibly go wrong? A slow start does gradually build to an engrossing, sad tale of a bad choice, made from love, that can have no good outcome. Small town prejudice and the lingering effects of a brutal war contribute to the pressure and difficulty involved in choosing to do the right thing. One can’t help but feel for the deeply tragic lighthouse keeper, who is almost literally stuck between a rock and a hard place. Sympathy is harder to maintain for his equally tragic wife, whose bitterness threatens to compound her tragedy. The book has been made into a film starring Michael Fassbender and Alicia Vikander, two very European actors for such an Australian story.