Abstract
Uprooted, longing for love and to feel somehow situated, Willa Jackson flees life as a military wife when she meets Hugh, the lighthouse keeper on McNabs Island in Halifax Harbour. The object of her fantasies, a musician, he's the last of a dying breed in this story set during the final days of lightkeeping before automation. Romanced by this magical location-so close to the city and its lively communities, yet so remote-she involves her ten-year-old son, Alex, in her escape. Things sour when isolation and Hugh, harbourer of secrets deadlier than she can imagine, turn as brutal as the forces of nature-and of self-deception-that threaten to engulf all three. A tender yet heartbreaking story of one woman's reckoning.