AMANDA COX
Stats: Trade paperback, Revell, 2024
How acquired: Revell Reads Blogger Program
First line: The old woman observed the young boy kicked back in the adjacent recliner, his face practically glued to that tiny screen, as it had been since his visit began.
(Goodreads synopsis below.)
My thoughts: This was a slow moving, sometimes slightly meandering story filled with regrets and haunted pasts and desires to make amends for things that happened despite not being responsible. Walt regrets the way he left his best friend when he joined a merchant ship during the war. Joey has become a pariah in her hometown and desperately wants to restore her family’s good name. Finn still carries the pain of a youthful failed marriage.
Beautifully written, the story is mainly set in 2007 in North Carolina, where Joey takes a job overseeing the restoration of an old lighthouse on an island recently purchased by Walt, with occasional forays back to the early 1940’s, when German U-boats attacked and sunk merchant ships along the coast during Operation Drumbeat. Years ago I went through a phase where I read a lot of books set during the Holocaust and World War II, but I was still unfamiliar with Operation Drumbeat, so this was also an interesting history lesson.
This was my second time reading Amanda Cox (and I highly recommend HE SHOULD HAVE TOLD THE BEES). She’s a good storyteller, with writing that flows and wonderful characterization. A riveting read, with a slightly bittersweet but satisfying ending.
*Received via Revell Reads Blogger Program and voluntarily reviewed*
Synopsis from Goodreads:
Every family has its secrets. Josephina Harris wouldn't mind if her family still had a few of their own after a lawsuit tarnishes their name. When an opportunity opens to become a temporary keeper of a decommissioned lighthouse on a North Carolina island, she jumps at the chance to escape her small town to oversee its restoration.
As the work begins, "Joey" discovers strange notes tucked deep in the crevices of the old stone walls--pages torn from a lighthouse keeper's log signed by someone named Mae who recounts harrowing rescues at sea. Fascinated by a woman lighthouse keeper, Joey digs into the past only to discover there's never been a record of a lighthouse keeper by that name.
When things start to go amiss on the island, locals are convinced that it is the ghost of the lighthouse keeper and his daughter who were lost at sea during World War II. As Joey sifts through decades of rumors and legends and puts together the pieces of the past, what emerges is a love story--one that's not over yet.
