Audio: The lighthouse keeper's daughter - Hazel Gaynor

Audiobook, Unabridged, 10h

Published October 9th 2018 by HarperAudio

Historical fiction

Thank you Harper for this review copy

My Thoughts

This book takes part in 1938 and 1838 and as always there was one time period I found more interesting. There always is and I do always wish that it could have been only about that period in time. I get getting that other POV, but still 1838 would have been fine with me. Or 1938 alone in her time.

Grace is the daughter of a lighthouse keeper, and she knows the job as good as her father. But women could not take over then. She is also really brave, and makes her father set out with her in a storm to save people from a sinking ship. I liked how humble she was cos no, not everyone would have done that. The storm was furious, they could have died too.

The story is about the fame she gains, and does not want. How she feels about the wreck and those saved, and not saved. And a young artist she met before and meet again. A love story that can not be. Oh Grace. Her story broke me. I wanted her to be happy and free. How she loved her island and lighthouse!

The other story is about Mathilda, who is connected to Grace and wonders about her tale. She is pregnant and gets shipped off to a relative who works at a lighthouse.

This has nothing to do with this story, but I did not realise how lucky Mathilda was before I later today read an article about 700 kids found in a sewage drain behind a Nunnery. She was so resentful for being sent away, but she was lucky! Those being sent to the nuns were not lucky. Poor souls, poor kids!

Back to Mathilda. She stays with her relative Harriet. There are secrets and well I shall not dwell upon those, spoilers! But there is sadness here too and this story was actually the one that brought me to tears. Which was weird, because one story in Grace's was so sad! It broke me, and then this other one makes me cry.

Conclusion:
There is a lot of sadness, but also so much joy and I want to become a lighthouse keeper too! Even if I know that yes maybe not, all those boat trips and storms.

The author and then the narrator really brings life to these people and especially to the lighthouse.

Narrator: Imogen Church

I enjoyed all her voices, and she brought life into them all. She read with a calm voice that held in the most furious storm and ripped me apart

Blurb

1838: Northumberland, England. Longstone Lighthouse on the Farne Islands has been Grace Darling’s home for all of her twenty-two years. When she and her father rescue shipwreck survivors in a furious storm, Grace becomes celebrated throughout England, the subject of poems, ballads, and plays. But far more precious than her unsought fame is the friendship that develops between Grace and a visiting artist. Just as George Emmerson captures Grace with his brushes, she in turn captures his heart.

1938: Newport, Rhode Island. Nineteen-years-old and pregnant, Matilda Emmerson has been sent away from Ireland in disgrace. She is to stay with Harriet, a reclusive relative and assistant lighthouse keeper, until her baby is born. A discarded, half-finished portrait opens a window into Matilda’s family history. As a deadly hurricane approaches, two women, living a century apart, will be linked forever by their instinctive acts of courage and love.