Lighthouse Bay

February 18, 2013
The setting of Freeman’s warmly emotional second novel (after Wildflower Hill), a port town on the coast of Queensland, Australia, takes its name from the beckoning light that has saved innumerable ships over the years. Freeman skillfully unites the stories of two women who live a century apart but both face the challenge of overcoming difficult pasts, and both under the lighthouse’s watchful presence. In 1901, Isabella Winterbourne, sole survivor of a shipwreck, arrives in Queensland carrying with her the pain of her infant son Daniel’s death prior to the disaster, as well as a hidden treasure. Lighthouse keeper Matthew Seaward might be able to teach her to love again. In the present day, Libby Slater has returned to Lighthouse Bay, alone and bereft after her married lover’s fatal aneurysm, to confront her memories. Can a stash of diaries hidden in the old lighthouse help repair the relationship between Libby and her estranged sister, Juliet? Freeman’s moving tale gives her two heroines the unique chance to make a fresh start in life.

February 1, 2013
Freeman's romance (Wildflower Hill, 2010) weaves together the stories of two women, separated by a century, who finally move to embrace their futures. When Isabella Winterbourne accompanies her wealthy husband on a voyage from England to Australia in 1901, she's still grieving the death of their infant son a few years earlier. She despises her authoritarian husband, Arthur, and his family, renowned for their jewelry empire. The couple is accompanying a piece of great value, a jewel-encrusted gold mace, which was commissioned by the queen as a gift for the Australian Parliament. But the ship sinks off the Australian coast during a storm, and Isabella is the only survivor. She saves the chest that contains not only the mace, but a small bracelet she's hidden there, the only remaining memento of her son. Barely alive when she reaches Lighthouse Bay, she's cared for by Matthew, the lighthouse keeper, who buries the mace after Isabella retrieves the bracelet. Isabella, desperate to travel to America to be with her sister, adopts an alias to avoid detection and finds work as a nanny for a local family whose son was born on the same date as her late child. She hopes to earn enough money for her passage, but her plans are delayed. In a slightly less interesting account and over 100 years later, Libby Slater, distraught over the death of her married lover, returns to her hometown and settles into a cottage adjacent to the same lighthouse that once was a haven to Isabella. Libby's dead lover, Mark, was Arthur Winterbourne's great-grandnephew. Her sister, Juliet, runs a B&B nearby, but the two are estranged because of a tragedy that occurred 20 years earlier. Libby's unsure about her future, but she accepts work from Mark's widow and considers an offer that would make her quite wealthy, a proposal she knows will put her at further odds with her sister. Smoothly transitioning between the two tales, Freeman establishes a believable link between Isabella and Libby and allows each storyline to play out to a reasonable resolution. And although her attempt to build suspense is weak, the author's description of the beautiful Australian coastline will linger with readers long after they finish the book.

COPYRIGHT(2013) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

April 15, 2013
In 1901, Isabella Winterbourne survives the shipwreck that claims her unloving husband, who refused to let her grieve the death of her infant son. She walks 50 miles to Lighthouse Bay, carrying only the priceless jeweled mace intended for the new Australian Parliament as a gift from the queen. She is found by Matthew Seaward, steady lighthouse keeper, but her husband's brother may not be far behind. In 2011, Libby Slater reluctantly returns to Lighthouse Bay after the death of her married lover, unsure of her reception from her sister, Juliet, who runs the family B&B. Then a developer starts to show interest just as a young man from Libby and Juliet's past unearths Matthew's journals. The plot may sound complicated, but Freeman (Wildflower Hill, 2011) weaves the two time periods together so seamlessly that it zips by. The secondary romance plot for Juliet is adorable. The book definitely contains some of the hallmarks of women's fictionsisters with a painful past, loveless marriages, handsome men in convenient placesbut this story contains enough adventure and villainy, especially in Isabella's story, to avoid clich'.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)