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The Lamplighters

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The Lamplighters

By: Emma Stonex
Narrated by: Indira Varma, Tom Burke
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About this listen

This audiobook is narrated by Indira Varma and Tom Burke.

As recommended by the BBC Radio 2 Book Club.

They say we'll never know what happened to those men. They say the sea keeps its secrets....

Cornwall, 1972. Three lighthouse keepers vanish from a remote rock, miles from the shore. The entrance door is locked from the inside. The clocks have stopped. The principal keeper's weather log describes a mighty storm, but the skies have been clear all week.

What happened to those three men, out on the tower? The heavy sea whispers their names. The tide shifts beneath the swell, drowning ghosts. Can their secrets ever be recovered from the waves?

Twenty years later, the women they left behind are still struggling to move on. Helen, Jenny and Michelle should have been united by the tragedy, but instead it drove them apart. And then a writer approaches them. He wants to give them a chance to tell their side of the story. But only in confronting their darkest fears can the truth begin to surface....

Inspired by real events, The Lamplighters, by Emma Stone is an intoxicating and suspenseful mystery, an unforgettable story of love and grief that explores the way our fears blur the line between the real and the imagined.

©2021 Emma Stonex (P)2021 Macmillan Publishers International Ltd Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Magical Realism Sea Adventures Fantasy Adventure Heartfelt Tear-jerking Thought-Provoking

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Critic reviews

"A mystery, a love story and a ghost story, all at once. I didn’t want it to end." (S. J. Watson)
All stars
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I really enjoyed listening to this book. The performances of the readers were excellent. couldn't stop listening. Not too sure about the ending but that could just be me, as I often feel that way about books I've read. I like books to be believable but in real life stories never really end.

I couldn't stop listening.

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I really enjoyed the characterisation. A great plot that scratches the itch of a lifelong fascination with lighthouses.

Loved it from beginning to end.

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I found this a little slow to start, but I became quite invested in the characters. I was compelled to find out what happens next. Overall an enjoyable book, I would recommend it to others who enjoy a light read with a good story.

Good read

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I was drawn in to the story by the excellent readers. I was a bit confused by the tooing and froing with dates but once I sorted who was who, I got in to it. As time went on, I began to think the story dragged and I found I got more depressed. Although we found out what happened in the end, I didn’t feel satisfied and was disappointed. I didn’t like the Americanisms eg Clurk rather than clerk and casket instead of coffin to name a couple.

Potential missed

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Must admit I struggled with this. Given the quality of narrative, narration, and characters I'm so often used to listening to things on here this heat felt a few stars short in each department. Stuck with it, but only cos I'm a finisher.

Didn't see the light

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Loved it. Great book club choice, everyone got something different from the book and everyone enjoyed it.

Mystery

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This novel may have by chance caught a current interest in 'truths' - how true is one person's truth? Can some truths never be known?
Inspired by obvious deep research in lighthouses and the life of the keepers on them, and by an unexplained disappearance of some keepers on a Hebridean lighthouse in 1900, the author has created her own 'truth' around the disappearance of three keepers from The Maiden Rock some miles off Land's End. A door locked from the inside greeted the men sent to take Keeper Walker off the lighthouse to take him home on leave - and no men.
Stonex has cleverly pieced together the stories of the men and, twenty years later, the memories and intertwined lives of the lovers and wives of the three men. She has created a vivid life well: the unrelenting workings of the lighthouse, the isolation, the sometimes fraught inter-relationships of the men, their backgrounds, the physical hard work - and the massive presence of the greatest character of all: the sea. The women's stories each have their own truths which were hidden at the time of the disappearance; the journalist who comes to interview them has reasons of his own (revealed only at the end) for searching for a truth he knows he can probably never find.
There's also a strand of supernatural - what is the white bird which can sometimes be seen circling, following? Psychological cracks develop; the past haunts men's present minds... There are a lot of themes and moods explored and the men and the women's stories are crammed. For this reason, I think the book might be better read, or at least listened to for a second time. I think I would appreciate more of the subtleties on a second listening - it's SO full that some can be missed on a single hearing.
There is some lovely language - this is Emma Stonex's first novel - I'll certainly look out for her next.

'The sea doesn't care who you are'

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First audible book, excellently read making the characters really become real.
The story was unexpected, but very poignant and truly character driven. Highly enjoyable.

intriguing and unexpectedly beautiful

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Loved this book. Found the first chapter more difficult to settle into then I was utterly captivated by the characters and their story.

Captivating...

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The first thought was that this is going to be boring historical newspaper-type report of events but it turned to be a wonderful journey to peoples hearts and their unique characters. Loved that book. Would love to know this amazing and so insightful and observant author Emma Stonex.

Unbelievably deep, detailed and insightful description of the emotions and feeling! Loved that.

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