The Lamplighters by Emma Stonex

 

First Line: When Jory opens the curtains, the day is light and gray, the radio playing a half-known song.

 

On New Year's Eve, 1972, a boat pulls up to the Maiden Rock Lighthouse with relief for the keepers. No one comes out to greet them. When the entrance door-- locked from the inside-- is battered down, the lighthouse is empty. All three keepers are missing. The table is set, ready for a meal. The Principal Keeper's log notes a storm raging outside when the weather has been clear all week. And all the clocks are stopped at 8:45.

Twenty years later, a writer visits the keepers' wives, determined to write a book about what really happened at Maiden Rock Light. Will he be able to solve the mystery?

~

Emma Stonex's The Lamplighters moves between the wives' stories and the mens' last weeks together in the lighthouse. From one narrative to the next, secrets are uncovered, truths are revealed... and sometimes twisted into lies. Readers really have to keep on their toes. Whose narrative should be believed? What on earth really happened? I really liked the fact that this novel is based on a true story. This actually happened. Things like this are a feast for the imagination, and the author's interpretation is an intriguing one.

Stonex has the perfect setting: Maiden Rock, a tower light set on a rock miles from the coast of Cornwall. "Sailors' legend had it she was built on the jaws of a fossilized sea monster." Being fifteen miles southwest of Land's End, it almost sounds like "Abandon hope, all ye who enter here," doesn't it? One of the things that the author does best is to have her characters tell us the differences between being a keeper on a lighthouse on the coast where he has a snug house nearby to live in, possibly with his wife and children, and being a keeper on a tower light, one of those slender columns rising off a rock out in the open sea. Let me tell you, I'd have to be in full-out hermit mode to even consider being a keeper of a tower light.

Although all sorts of imaginative rumors swirl around the keepers' disappearance, it rapidly becomes apparent that the dynamics between the men are what's at fault. There's nothing supernatural about it at all. All readers have to do is read the varying stories the wives tell and watch the men interact with each other in the lighthouse, but it's far from easy to deduce what really happened.

There's a lot to like about The Lamplighters, and I really wish that I'd enjoyed it more. Problem is, I'm the type of reader who has to have just one character that keeps my attention, even if it's the bad guy. The further I read, the less I cared about any of the characters. It became a mere quest to find out what really happened, why and how those three men seemed to vanish without a trace.

The Lamplighters is a worthwhile read for the setting alone, and as for the characters, your mileage may certainly vary.

The Lamplighters by Emma Stonex

eISBN: 9781984882165

Viking © 2021

eBook, 352 pages

 

Suspense, Standalone

Rating: C+

Source: Purchased from Amazon.

I Have Emma Stonex Covered!

 

It's been a while since I've had a cover-off. Experiencing one distraction after another can do that to a person, so when I came across the UK cover of a book I'd recently downloaded to my Kindle, I thought it was time to dust off this poor, neglected series and start it up again.

What book had I downloaded to my Kindle? Emma Stonex's The Lamplighters because of my weakness for lighthouses, the book's synopsis, and the price. Pardon the digression, but don't you just love when a $14.99 eBook you've been keeping your eye on has its price adjusted to $14.95-- like that four cents is going to make you buy the book? Yeah. Me, too. Needless to say, the sale price for this book involved a lot more than four cents!

But, to get back on track, here's the synopsis of the book:

 

It's New Year's Eve, 1972, when a boat pulls up to the Maiden Rock lighthouse with relief for the keepers. But no one greets them. When the entrance door, locked from the inside, is battered down, rescuers find an empty tower. A table is laid for a meal not eaten. The Principal Keeper's weather log describes a storm raging round the tower, but the skies have been clear all week. And the clocks have all stopped at 8:45.

Two decades later, the wives who were left behind are visited by a writer who is determined to find the truth about the men's disappearance. Moving between the women's stories and the men's last weeks together in the lighthouse, long-held secrets surface and truths twist into lies as we piece together what happened, why, and who to believe.

In her riveting and suspenseful novel, Emma Stonex writes a story of isolation and obsession, of reality and illusion, and of what it takes to keep the light burning when all else is swallowed by dark.

 

Sounds like the type of story that will make me jump if, while I'm reading it, Denis sneaks up behind me and startles me. Plus, there's the added bonus of the lighthouse being off the coast of Cornwall, England-- one of my favorite spots.

Okay now. Time to take a look at those covers!

 

To me, both covers are striking and give me the feeling that something is wrong. The abstract graphics and bright colors of the UK cover make me feel as though that lighthouse is in an alternate universe, and that if I go there, strange things are definitely going to happen. Yes indeed, the colors and the graphics used on the UK cover are eye-catching.

However...

(You knew that was coming, didn't you?)

It's the US cover that works for me. It's the US cover that, if I bought books because of their covers alone, would make me buy The Lamplighters. Why? Blue is my favorite color. I love lighthouses, and the one depicted on the US cover makes me feel as though I've climbed all those steps until I'm just below the lantern, and I'm looking out into the darkness and the weather, and I'm looking for... help.

The US cover of The Lamplighters has drawn me right into the story and I haven't even opened the book to read one single word. I have a feeling that that's what the marketing teams for publishing houses want: covers that draw readers right into their books without even opening them. 

What's your opinion? Which cover do you prefer-- UK? US? Neither one? Too close to call? Inquiring minds would love to know!