A sweeping, emotional tale of hope and perseverance, Swan Light weaves together the stories of two people separated by a century but connected by family, purpose, and one extraordinary lighthouse.
1913. Eighty-three-year-old Silvestre Swan has dedicated his life to the care of his Newfoundland lighthouse. His petition to relocate Swan Light from its precarious cliff’s edge is going unheard by town patriarch Cort Roland—that is, until a terrible storm brings an unlikely ally into Swan’s life. But is it too late for the stone lighthouse?
2014. Marine archaeologist Mari Adams's attempts to fund her search for the notorious SS Californian are realized when she accepts a job to find the remains of Swan Light, rumored to have collapsed into the sea one hundred years ago. She teams up with salvager Julian Henry, and the pair unearth more than they bargained for in their search for the ruins. But when a group of treasure hunters threatens their mission, their hunt for the truth turns dangerous.
As past and present collide, the secrets hiding on the ocean floor begin to surface. Can Mari find the answers she is looking for—and at what price?
No spoilers. 3 stars. This novel about Swan Light, a Newfoundland lighthouse, was my Amazon First Reads selection for the month of April 2023...
The story is told in two time frames, about 100 years between the two...
In 1913...
Silvestre (Silvy) Swan is in his lighthouse reflecting on his upbringing in the seaside village of Norman Cliffs along with four other children...
Swan is now in his 80s and trying to save his lighthouse/home from sliding off the bluff into the sea...
... he has been denied funding to save Swan Light by the local banking family unless he surrenders the light's deed to the bank...
Meanwhile, in 2014...
Scripps diver Mari Adams, about to lose funding on her current search for the sunken ship California...
... is offered a lucrative side job looking for Swan Light, which had fallen into the sea a century prior, by a wealthy 104 year old woman...
Complicating matters...
An organization called Teach, named for the famous pirate Blackbeard, is searching for a shipwreck in the nearby waters and...
Teach will stop at nothing to get what they're after... maybe even murder...
This story was a middlin' tale that could have been better. In the beginning, there was much talk about the closeness of the five children, but little was told about the kids themselves. I bring this up because the friendships are alluded to as the story progresses, but little is made of it except that they spent their childhood together.
Also, I needed more information and description about the interior of the lighthouse to make the story come alive and there was so much character jumping that, at times, it was difficult to know what was going on and where a sudden character introduction took place.
Much of the story is hard to follow due to the style in which it is written. I found myself rereading pages to understand what the author was trying to say, and I found it hard to get back into the story after rereading pages. It was tedious in places.
Summing up, this is a decent story but a little ambitious. It was similar in some ways to RIPTIDE by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, but not as good.
Phoebe Rowe’s first book was just the kind of read I love. Historical fiction, dual timeline, adventure and excitement along with tension and stress.
The timeline bounces between 1914 and 2014 mostly taking place on New Foundland. The location sure does give me all of my childhood Nova Scotia feels 🩷. I wish my grandma was here to share this book with. She would have LOVED it and I bet you she would have had a shipwreck story from her childhood of her own to share with me.
Swan Light is a touching and compulsively readable story steeped in history. The dual timelines and the uncovering of various mysteries and family secrets kept me turning the pages, but it was the vividly drawn characters—including the lighthouse!—the gorgeous writing, and the evocative setting that really got me. The author clearly did an incredible amount of research to add richness to the past timeline and authenticity to the present, but I never felt bogged down in mundane details or facts. Whether you’re an avid historical fiction reader or now, Swan Light is a beautiful story to get lost in.
There was just something that was not clicking for me. The story is good, but the characters are flat. It is difficult to get invested in any of them, especially Mari. Also, when dealing with many different families and generations sometimes I would get lost with who is who. It is a short book but took me so long because I just was not into this. I did like the writing, but there was something missing to really capture the excitement and mystery the book was trying to deliver.
This was an Amazon first read. I’m glad I picked this book. Told in dual timelines,one from 1913,the other 2014. I found the 1913 story of the lighthouse keeper very poignant and moving. I loved how the sea felt so alive like a person as did the lighthouse. The 2014 story with Mari a scientist searching for the lost lighthouse was good,just not as moving.
I was raised just a few short miles from an iconic lighthouse, so I retain an inexplicable fondness for lighthouses of all shapes and sizes.
Set on the rugged eastern coast of Newfoundland, Canada, this debut novel spoke directly to my heart.
Mari Adams 2014 - A young woman who is an oceanographic diver and researcher. She is obsessed with finding the wreck of the SS Californian in Greek waters when she receives a message that a woman in Newfoundland, Canada wants her to investigate the disappearance of a lighthouse said to have been located on the rugged cliffs below St. John's. It was rumoured to have collapsed into the Atlantic a century ago.
"...all these saints of shallow waters that kept the sea from taking its dues."
Silvestre Swan 1913 - An eighty-three year old lighthouse keeper. He saw Swan Light built from local stone and remains as its only keeper. With coastal erosion, he fears that Swan Light won't be able to sustain her position much longer... Having lost his beloved wife Grace, he cannot bear the thought of losing Swan Light as well. Silvestre petitions the nearby townsfolk to help him get Swan Light moved back from its precarious position.
"Lighthouses exist because people are so afraid of the sea that they forget to be afraid of the shore."
As Mari Adams and her assigned Captain, marine scavenger Julian Black, search for remnants of the lighthouse, other less ethical divers are looking for gold from an alleged shipwreck in the same vicinity.
Told via dual timelines, this was a novel that had everything. Rich history, suspense, romance, sound storytelling, and of course a lighthouse. I was completely immersed in the story while reading.
In summation, Swan Light is an accomplished debut novel that will definitely be on my best of 2023 list. I absolutely loved it.
If you are a historical fiction/historical mystery lover you NEED to read this book!
The minute Swan Light was put on my radar I had a feeling I was going to love it, and boy did I!
Told from dual timelines, we follow Swan, a lighthouse keeper in 1913, and Mari, a marine archaeologist in 2014. Mari has run out of funds for her current project (looking for the shipwreck of the SS Californian) when she is approached with a very interesting offer- find the remains of a lighthouse that fell into the ocean and the next round of Mari’s research will be funded. The catch? Her donor wants her to dig deep and find the whole story behind what happened to it, its keeper, and anyone else involved.
I don’t think I will ever run out of good things to say about Swan Light! From the first page I was completely invested. The story is provoking, the writing is beautiful, the mystery intriguing. I could not 👏🏻 get 👏🏻 enough 👏🏻 I loved the thought put into the details- how the dog earned his name, the lighthouse being a character all on its own, the interwoven storylines- everything was just perfect!
Das Buch entwickelte sich für mich von 3 Sternen zu 4,5 Sternen, das Ende war wunderbar und herzzerreißend und wird mich so schnell nicht loslassen. Eine richtig tolle Abenteuergeschichte mit Charakteren, die mir sofort ans Herz gewachsen sind. 🩵
It is 1913 and in the small town of Norman Cliffs, Newfoundland eighty-three-year-old Silvestre “Silvy” Swan, keeper of the Swan Light lighthouse, is struggling to find the help he needs to prevent losing the structure to the sea. Just over one hundred years later, archaeological diver Mari Adams is in the Mediterranean looking for the remains of the Californian, its story being the subject deep fascination since she was a little girl. As a door is about to close on her research, elderly Evangeline Devon, whose motives are not completely clear, hires Mari to find the remains of Swan Light, providing her with all the resources she needs. She finds out during her first dive that there are other people interested in her findings, people who will stop at nothing to get what they want. As Mari continues with her research, the threats get darker as time runs out to find the truth behind Swan Light.
This is a beautiful story about life defined by loss and the sense of a purpose it produces. It is also a story of love for family: the good as well as the misguided, and about the ways we honor those we love through memory and the preservation of their story. The plot is engaging and contains interesting historical facts. The author’s descriptions of Silvy’s and Mari’s observations and feelings about their surroundings are heartfelt and transporting. I loved joining Silvy in his quiet, everyday life, his love for his older brother, his memories, and his courage. I also loved that this novel fed into my fascination for lighthouses.
If you enjoy genuine, heartfelt characters, history, intrigue, and a tiny amount of romance, this book is for you. Thanks to NetGalley and to Lake Union Publishing for providing me with a free digital copy to review this book prior to its release.
"There was so much this sea had seen, and from here you'd never even know to look for it."
*** A copy of this book was kindly provided to me by Netgalley and Lake Union Publishing in exchange for an honest review. Thank you! ***
P.S. Find more of my reviews here.["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>
I think overall this was a good book with likeable characters, but there was a lot of inaccuracies about the province of Newfoundland (where I live) to just overlook, and because of those the rating I gave the book was a 3 ⭐. I think a bit more research was needed
Written in the style of Homecoming, in which a person of the 2000s is unraveling a mysterious event 100 years prior. Loved the characters - Sylvestre, Clara, Stay, Evangeline. Didn't want it to end! What am I going to do with myself now?
I knew Swan Light was going spread like warm, fuzzy saltwater through my veins and drown my soul in the best of ways, before I even read the first page. The stunning cover with promises of a sweeping, emotional tale of the mysterious circumstances of a lighthouse, its keeper trying to save it, and present day divers tying to unravel the mystery of it all - just captured my salty heart the minute I laid eyes on it. And then I read it and it was better than I could have even imagined. 💙 Two timelines. 100 years apart. One lighthouse. With vibrant and vivid detail, you can smell the salty air and hear the waves crashing as you read this compelling and exquisite story of what happened to Swan Light, how it couldn’t be saved, and the mystery of why. Your heart aches for the lighthouse as it precariously stares down its eventual fate. With something for everyone including history, shipwrecks, and treasure hunting, purpose and found family, suspense and a bit of romance, it’s a reminder of the respect we should all have for the ocean and the secrets it holds onto forever - sometimes never to be revealed. Just like the sea, this book is pure magic. ✨
"But shipwrecks were rarely like that, she’d learned later, proud and upright, perched whimsically on the seafloor. Wrecks were wrecked, sure and violent. Shattered and flattened, rotting edges under sand. There was no lovely way for something meant to conquer the sea to instead be torn apart by it."
This has to be one of my favorite Kindle First reads, and one of my favorite books of the year so far. I loved the story, the inter-weaving of past and present, and how everything came together at the end.
The only complaint is that I should have started taking notes on who was who, because there are a LOT of characters in this book and they all seem to get introduced really early on. I was a bit confused at first, but felt it all came together by the end.
I really enjoyed this book. Historical fiction is my absolute favourite genre and I especially love when stories are told from two different times. Set between 1913 and 2014, we switch between the story of a lighthouse keeper Silvy Swan and a present day historian/Marine Salvager Mari. This was a gorgeous story with loads of twists. I loved how all the forgotten stories were unfolding, as well as the stories that were happening in the present day. Silvy was such a loveable character along with his dog Stay. This book is beautiful, exciting and a perfect summer read. I actually received this on NetGalley a long time ago and never realised. It was archived and I only recently saw it in my archived titles. So I got myself a copy and I am so glad I did.
Unfortunately May has not been a good reading month for me, and I feel bad about my low rating on this one, because I think it had a lot of potential.
My biggest problem with SWAN LIGHT is that it was waaay too jumpy. Dual time line, too many POVs and super short chapters. By the end, the chapters were a couple pages long and kept ping ponging from past to present. I really dislike that sort of narration.
Other than that, there were just too many plot points that seemed silly to me. I think this is primarily an emotional tale of generations and human connections and little communities and all that, so if that’s your thing, you may very well love this book. I guess I am just more of a plot focused reader, and I thought the plot in this one was as shaky as the lighthouse built on the edge of the cliff.
Barely 2 stars, confusing timeline of flat characters, had to skim, solving the mystery, meh... Guess I'm not really interested in the details of salvaging shipwrecks either.
Often the books I get through Amazon First Look program are “meh”, but this one was delightful. Loosely based within the context of real life events; an aging lighthouse that actually fell into the sea and the SS Californian which was the last ship in contact with the Titanic before it sank, the novel’s setting is intriguing and, for me, was educational. It was a perfect setting for an intriguing and enjoyable read.
Although the story was interesting, and I loved the setting, I eventually became a bit "sea-sick" from how the choppy plot and flood of characters made me feel while reading it.
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"Nearing the end of your life has a tendency to make you reevaluate what came before it."
3.8. Great freebie book. This is also shockingly a debut novel, so I look forward to reading her future works. The writing made you feel you were immersed in the story without being too “wordsy”. Some novels do not feel authentic with their descriptive writing, just trying to throw every word they can think of in the wiring. But here, I felt like it was a great balance.
The knock from 4 was I didn’t love the current time line as much as the past (do we ever?). And feel like we should have spent more time there. A lot to develop. When it would bounce back to the current time line, I’d think wait who is that character again? 🤦🏼♀️ Also didn’t love the ending with the “bad guy” getting a little extreme and unrealistic. Overall great read that had even more potential.
Excellent story about the search for a lost lighthouse and the people of that time. Sylvy was the keeper and devoted his entire life to that task but his story was lost, as was the lighthouse he maintained, Mari is a diver dedicated to discovering shipwrecks. She is hired by Evangeline to find the lighthouse and the whole story surrounding it. The book is written going back and forth between 1913 and 2014. The ending left me wanting for more, in a good way.
A book about a lighthouse on a cliff in Newfoundland a century ago. And Silvestre the old man who dedicated his life to its care. And Mari the marine archaeologist who searched for it’s remains. And the mysterious 100 year old woman who funded the search. I liked the people in this book. Except the bad guys of course. The story was interesting and the setting engaging. There were some silly things later in the book but by that time I cared about the characters to ignore those flaws. I did like that the lighthouse “talked” to Silvy. Makes sense after all the decades when they lived together. This is Rowe’s first novel. I didn’t find out why she chose this setting but I look forward to seeing more from her.
Swan Light was one of the Kindle First offerings in April 2023. It caught my eye and I impulsively downloaded it with no idea of what to expect and few reviews to guide me. And now, after finally getting to it two years later, I find it surprisingly good.
Rowe constructs a historical mystery told from two perspectives, that of an archeological diver hired in 2014 to investigate the loss of an old lighthouse on the coast Newfoundland, and the actual 1913 story of the people and events that lead up to this loss. As the book progresses, the story gradually unfolds with several unexpected plot twists, and we get embroiled in an old feud, including an evil greedy corporation. The plot line is creative, though sometimes seems to wander off course, although the characterization of the bad guys did feel a little contrived and implausible.
All told however, this was an engaging and compelling read and gives one a nice nostalgic taste, perhaps a bit too saccharine, of coastal Newfoundland.
So, we are going to go with 3-½ stars for this one.
I enjoyed this book. It is a quick read full of wonderful characters, history and intrigue. I learned about searching for shipwrecks and the technology needed to research and search for them as well as the legal challenges of salvaging. It kept me reading right til the end.
I try to give honest reviews, and giving this a three star is difficult. I thought I'd find this novel is interesting, lighthouse, archeology, history., are my go to. However this book took me halfway into it to for me to really begin to enjoy reading. The second half almost seemed as if it were written by someone else. Disappointed read
The story of a lighthouse that collapsed in the sea. Two stories. One of the man who built and took care of the lighthouse. And the other 100 years later of the marine archaeologist trying to prove it existed.
Nothing wrong with the writing but 4 pages in the saccharine cuteness of this book, including the ongoing dialogue between the old lighthouse keeper and his lighthouse, did me in. My teeth are still hurting. And I couldn’t take the multiple inanities, also all in the first four pages: irritation at a guest for showing up; the claim that “you can’t prepare for a storm;” the dog named Stay because the FIRST time its new owners used the command it came instead; and the supposed inability of villagers to spell “hyacinth.” Nope, not for me.