The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards

On a cold winter's night in Lexington, KY, Norah Henry goes into labor. It is 1964, and Lexington is in the midst of a blinding blizzard. Norah's husband, Dr. David Henry, administers drugs and delivers twins; a healthy baby boy and a girl with Down syndrome. Deciding that his wife cannot handle having a 'handicapped' child, he instructs his nurse, Caroline Gill, to take the child to an institution and never reveal its existence.

However, Caroline cannot bring herself to leave the child when she sees what life is like in the institution, so she takes the child and disappears. She moves to another city and raises the little girl as her own. Norah is told that her son Paul's twin died at birth.

Norah and David's life deteriorates under the burden of guilt (David's), grief (Norah's), and the longing for a lost sibling (Paul's).  Meanwhile, Caroline and baby Phoebe build a warm, satisfying life, albeit one also built on a lie, as is David and Norah's. A compelling read.

434 pages

The Light Between Oceans by M. L. Stedman

After four horrific years on the Western Front during World War II, Tom Sherbourne returns to Australia, and becomes a lighthouse keeper on the isolated island of Janus. When he marries a young, vibrant woman named Isabel, the two of them become the only inhabitants of  this small island, half a day's journey by boat from the shore. A supply boat comes every three months; the only link they have to civilization.

Even though they only have each other for human interaction, and must work very hard to maintain the island and the lighthouse, they are very happy. When Isabel becomes pregnant with their first child, she is ecstatic. But she miscarries, then becomes pregnant again and miscarries again. When her third pregnancy ends in the stillbirth of a son, Isabel sinks into a deep depression. Then one day, walking near the shore, she hears a baby's cry. And there, by the shoreline, is a boat with a dead man inside, and an infant wrapped in a woman's sweater.

Tom wants to summon help, but Isabel convinces him that the mother must be dead, for what mother would allow a baby to be taken from her and taken out to sea in a small boat? She manages to persuade Tom to let her keep the baby, against his better judgment. They pretend it is the child they were expecting, the one who was stillborn. For several years, they were all very happy, but a visit to the mainland changes everything.

This book is about the sometimes dire consequences of deception, even one that begins as a kindness.
Lives can be devastated, even those of the most innocent.

Highly recommended.

354 pages