A mesmerizing story by Emma Stonex about three lighthouse keepers who vanish in 1972 from Maiden Rock Lighthouse, fifteen miles off the coast of Cornwall. In 1992, an author brings the old mystery back to life when he questions the wives and girlfriend of the missing men for a book he wants to write. Secrets that have been buried for twenty years come to the fore. With themes of regret, loneliness, lack of communication within relationships, and the consequences of guilt, Stones probes these lives with psychological insight. A subtle haunting adds an eerie quality. Stonex manages to make descriptions of the supernatural feel as natural as observations of the sea in all its vagaries.

The Lamplighters was a completely enjoyable read and one that I often think about still. Most of it was a 5 starread. I dropped a star because so many threads were left hanging at the end. I think this one would be a great book club book with plenty of discussion points.

This was an interesting story and an interesting look at everyone's view of the truth. I was hooked from the start with the locked room of a mystery, with the 3 Lighthouse workers vanished out of thin air and was propelled as we got insight into the 3 men and their significant others.

The Lamplighters by Emma Stonex is an intriguing read for anyone who is interested in the sea, what the life of a lighthouse keeper (and their family) might be like, and loves a good eerie mystery.

It is the first book that its author has NOT written under a pseudonym, and I was not at all surprised when I found out its author had once been an editor—because it is beautifully written.

It is a novel, however, with multitudes of characters and a number of plot lines to follow. If you get caught up in the characters and writing and depth of the plot as I did you will LOVE it. If you do not, however, and just want a light read, then this is not the right choice for you.

Here is the publisher’s blurb:

“Inspired by a haunting true story, a gorgeous and atmospheric novel about the mysterious disappearance of three lighthouse keepers from a remote tower miles from the Cornish coast--and about the wives who were left behind.

What strange fate befell these doomed men? The heavy sea whispers their names. Black rocks roll beneath the surface, drowning ghosts. And out of the swell like a finger of light, the salt-scratched tower stands lonely and magnificent.

It's New Year's Eve, 1972, when a boat pulls up to the Maiden Rock lighthouse with relief for the keepers. But no one greets them. When the entrance door, locked from the inside, is battered down, rescuers find an empty tower. A table is laid for a meal not eaten. The Principal Keeper's weather log describes a storm raging round the tower, but the skies have been clear all week. And the clocks have all stopped at 8:45.

Two decades later, the wives who were left behind are visited by a writer who is determined to find the truth about the men's disappearance. Moving between the women's stories and the men's last weeks together in the lighthouse, long-held secrets surface and truths twist into lies as we piece together what happened, why, and who to believe.

In her riveting and suspenseful novel, Emma Stonex writes a story of isolation and obsession, of reality and illusion, and of what it takes to keep the light burning when all else is swallowed by dark.”

In this novel, the disappearance happens in 1972. And it happens off the Cornish coast of southern England which is a very beautiful place. I have traveled there, so the setting of the book intrigued me as well as the premise. And the premise that it was inspired by a “ true story”. The true story happened in December 1900 from a lighthouse off the western coast of Scotland ( another beautiful place) I found when I looked into it. And it is an intriguing story never solved to this day. But this work is fascinating too, as is reading about what this work would have entailed in 1972. And the author included a bibliography of further reading that she used in her research at the end if you are interested.

Here is an excerpt from the first two chapters of the book to give you a feel for it:

“Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

1

Relief

When Jory opens the curtains, the day is light and gray, the radio playing a half-known song. He listens to the news, about a girl who's gone missing from a bus stop up north, and drinks from a mug of brown tea. Poor mother's beside herself-well, she would be. Short hair, short skirt, big eyes, that's how he pictures the girl, shivering in the cold, and an empty bus stop where someone should have stood, waving or drowning, and the bus pulls up and away, never the wiser, and the pavement shines on in the black rain.

The sea is quiet, with the glass-like quality that comes after bad weather. Jory unlatches the window and the fresh air is very nearly solid, an edible thing, clinking between the trawler cottages like an ice cube in a drink. There's nothing like the smell of the sea, nothing close: briny, clean, like vinegar kept in the fridge. Today it's soundless. Jory knows loud seas and silent seas, heaving seas and mirror seas, seas where your boat feels like the last blink of humankind on a roll so determined and angry that you believe in what you don't believe in, such as the sea being that halfway thing between heaven and hell, or whatever lies up there and whatever lurks down deep. A fisherman told him once about the sea having two faces. You have to take the both, he said, the good and the bad, and never turn your back on either one of them.

Today, after a long time, the sea is on their side. They'll do it today.

He’s in charge of whether the boat goes out there or not. Even if the wind's good at nine it doesn't mean it'll be good by ten, and whatever he's got in the harbor, say he's got four-feet-high waves in the harbor, he can guess they'll be forty feet round the tower. Whatever it is ashore, it'll be ten times as much round the light.

The new delivery is twentyish, with yellow hair and thick glasses. They make his eyes look small, twitchy; he reminds Jory of something kept in a cage, living in sawdust. He's standing there on the jetty in his cord bell-bottoms, frayed ends darkened by the slopping sea. Early morning it's quiet on the quay, a dog walker and a milk crate unloading. The frigid pause between Christmas and New Year.

Jory and his crew haul in the boy's supplies, Trident red cartons containing two months' clothes and food, fresh meat, fruit, proper milk not powdered, a newspaper, box of tea, Golden Virginia, and rope them down, covering the containers in tarpaulin. The keepers will be pleased: they'll have been on tinned stew the past four weeks and whatever was on the Mail's front page the day the last relief went out.

In the shallows, the water burps seaweed, slurping and sucking round the sides of the boat. The boy climbs in, his plimsolls wet, groping the sides like a blind man. Under one arm he carries a parcel of belongings tied up with string-books, cassette recorder, tapes, whatever he'll use to pass the time. He's a student, most likely: Trident gets a lot of students these days. He'll be writing music, that'll be his thing. Up in the lantern thinking this is the life. They all need an activity to do, especially on the towers-can't spend your whole time running up and down the stairs. Jory knew a keeper way back when, a fine craftsman who put ships in bottles; he'd spend his whole stay doing them and they were beautiful things by the end of it. And then they got televisions put in and this keeper threw it all away, literally chucked his whole kit out the window into the sea and from then on sat watching the box every free moment he got.

"Have you been doing this long?" the boy asks. Jory says yeah, longer than you've been alive. "Didn't think we'd make it," he says. "I've been waiting since Tuesday. They put me in digs in the village and very nice it was too, but not so nice as I'd want to stay there much longer. Every day I was looking out and thinking, Will we ever get off? Talk about a bloody storm. Have to say I don't know how it'll be out there when we get another. They told me you've never seen a storm till you've seen it from the sea, and it feels like the tower's going to collapse right from underneath you and wash away."

The new ones always want to talk. It's nerves, Jory thinks, about the crossing and if the wind might change, about the landing, about the men on the light, whether he'll fit in with them, what the one in charge is like. It isn't this boy's light yet; probably it won't ever be. Supernumeraries come and go, land light this time, rock the next, shuttled round the country like a pinball. Jory's seen scores of them, keen to start and taken up in the romantic bit of it, but it isn't as romantic as that. Three men alone on a lighthouse in the middle of the sea. There's nothing special about it, nothing at all, just three men and a lot of water. It takes a certain sort to withstand being locked up. Loneliness. Isolation. Monotony. Nothing for miles except sea and sea and sea. No friends. No women. Just the other two, day in, day out, unable to get away from them, it could drive you stark mad.

It's usual to wait days for the changeover, weeks even. Once he had a keeper stuck out there on a lost relief for four months straight.

"You'll get used to the weather," he says to the boy.

"I hope so."

"And you won't be half as ticked off as the poor sod who's due ashore."

In a bevy at the stern his relief crew look despondently out to sea, smoking and grunting conversation, their damp fingers soaking their cigarettes. They could be painted into a dour seascape, brushed roughly with thick oils. "What're we waiting for?" one of them shouts. "D'you want the tide to turn before we're off?" They've got the engineer with them too, out to fix the radio. Normally, on relief day, they'd have been in touch with the light five times already, but the storm took out the transmission.

Jory covers the last of the boxes and starts the motor and then they're away, the boat rocking and bobbing like a bath toy over the wavelets. A flock of gulls quarrel on a cockle-speckled rock; a blue trawler chugs idly into land. As the shoreline dwindles the water grows brisker, green waves leaping, crests that spume and dissolve. Farther out the colors bleed darkly, the sea turning to khaki and the sky to ominous slate. Water butts and slops against the prow; strings of sea foam surge and disperse. Jory chews a roll-up that's been flattened in his pocket but is still just about smokable, eyes on the horizon, smoke in his mouth. His ears ache in the cold. Overhead a white bird wheels in a vast, drab sky.

He can decipher the Maiden in the haze, a lone spike, dignified, remote. She's fifteen nautical miles out. Keepers prefer that, he knows, not to be so close to land that you can see it from the set-off and be reminded of home.

The boy sits with his back to her-a funny way to start, Jory thinks, with your back to the thing you're going to. He worries at a scratch on his thumb. His face looks soft and ill, uninitiated. But every seaman has to find his legs.

"You been on a tower before, sonny?"

"I was out at Trevose. Then down at Saint Catherine's."

"But never a tower."

"No, never a tower."

"Got to have the stomach for it," says Jory. "Have to get along with people too, no matter what they're like."

"Oh, I'll be fine about that."

" 'Course you will. Your PK's a good sort, that makes a difference."

"What about the others?"

"Was told to watch out for the Super. But being your age roughly, no doubt you'll get along fine."

"What about him?"

Jory smiles at the boy's expression. "No need to look like that. Service is full of stories, not all of them true."

The sea heaves and churns beneath them, blackly rolling, slapping, and slinging; the breeze backs up, skittering across the water, making it pimple and scatter. A buffet of spray explodes at the bow and the waves grow heavy and secretively deep. When Jory was a boy and they used to catch the boat from Lymington to Yarmouth, he would peer over the railings on deck and marvel at how the sea did this quietly, without you really noticing, how the shelf dropped and the land was lost, where if you fell in, it would be a hundred feet down. There would be garfish and smooth hounds: weird, bloated, glimmering shapes with soft, exploring tentacles and eyes like cloudy marbles.

The lighthouse draws near, a line becoming a post, a post becoming a finger.

"There she is. The Maiden Rock."

By now they can see the sea stain around her base, the scar of violent weather accumulated by decades of rule. Though he's done it many times, getting close to the Queen of the Lighthouses always makes Jory feel a certain way-scolded, insignificant, maybe slightly afraid. A fifty-meter column of heroic Victorian engineering, the Maiden looms palely magnificent against the horizon, a stoic bastion of seafarers' safety.

"She was one of the first," says Jory. "Eighteen ninety-three. Twice wrecked before they finally lit her wick. The saying goes she makes a sound when the weather hits hard, like a woman crying, where the wind gets in between the rocks."

Details creep out of the gray-the lighthouse windows, the concrete ring of the set-off, and the narrow trail of iron rungs leading up to the access door, known as the dog steps. The Maiden stands above the boy's shoulder, summoning.

"Can they see us?"

"By now."

But as Jory says it, he's searching for the figure he'd expect to see waiting down there on the set-off, the Principal Keeper in his navy uniform and peaked white cap or the Assistant waving them in. They'll have been watching the water since sunrise.

He eyes the cauldron around the base of the lighthouse with caution, deciding the best approach, if he'll put the boat ahead or astern, if he'll anchor her down or let her stay loose. Freezing water splurges across a sunken warren of rocks; when the sea fills up, the rocks disappear; when it drops, they emerge like black, glistening molars. Of all the towers it's the Bishop, the Wolf, and the Maiden that are hardest to land, and if he had to pick, he'd say the Maiden took it. Sailors' legend had it she was built on the jaws of a fossilized sea monster. Dozens died in her construction, and the reef has killed many an off-course mariner. She doesn't like outsiders; she doesn't welcome people.

But he's still waiting to see a keeper or two. They're not getting this boy away unless there's someone on the end of the landing gear. At that point with the drop and surge he'll be ten feet down one minute and ten up the next, and if he loses sight of it, his rope's snapping and his man's taking a cold bath. It's a hairy business, but that's the towers all over. To a land man the sea is a constant enough thing, but Jory knows it isn't constant: it's fickle and unpredictable, and it'll get you if you let it.

"Where are they?"

He hardly hears his mate's yell against the gush of water.

Jory signals they'll go around. The boy looks green. The engineer too. Jory ought to reassure them, but he isn't quite reassured himself. In all the years he's come to the Maiden, he's never taken the boat around the back of the tower.

The scale of the lighthouse rears up at them, sheer granite. Jory cranes his head to the entrance door, sixty feet above water, solid gunmetal and defiantly closed.

His crew holler; they call for the keepers and blow a shrill whistle. Farther up, higher still, the tower tapers into the sky, and the sky, in return, glances down at their little vessel, thrown about in confusion. There's that bird again, the one that followed them out. Wheeling, wheeling, calling a message they don't understand. The boy leans over the side of the boat and loses his breakfast to the sea.

They rise, they fall; they wait and wait.

Jory looks up at the tower, hulked out of its own shadow, and all he can hear are the waves, the crash and spit of foam, the slurp and wash of the rocks, and all he can think of is the missing girl on the radio that he heard about that morning, and the bus stop, the empty bus stop, and the driving, relentless rain.


2

Strange Affair at a Lighthouse

The Times, Sunday, December 31, 1972

Trident House has been informed of the disappearance of three of its keepers from the Maiden Rock Lighthouse, fifteen miles southwest of Land's End. The men have been named as Principal Keeper Arthur Black, Assistant Keeper William "Bill" Walker, and Supernumerary Assistant Keeper Vincent Bourne. The discovery was made by a local boatman and his crew yesterday morning when attempting to deliver a relieving keeper and bring Mr. Walker to shore.

As yet there is no indication of the missing men's whereabouts and no official statement has been made. An investigation has begun.”

Thank you publisher Viking and NetGalley for the Advanced Reader’s Copy of this book and for allowing me to review it. (16 March 2021 publication date)

This is based on a true story, which makes me love it even more. I enjoyed learning about this mysterious event and the lasting events it had.

Cornwall, 1972. Three keepers vanish from a remote lighthouse, miles from the shore. The entrance door is locked from the inside and the clocks have stopped. The weather log describes a mighty storm, but the skies have been clear all week. Twenty years later, the women they left behind are still struggling to move on. When a bestselling writer interviews them to learn more about the mysterious disappearances, long-hidden secrets bubble to the surface.

Author Emma Stonex was inspired by the mysterious, unsolved disappearance of Thomas Marshall, James Ducat, and Donald MacArthur in December 1900 from the island of Eilean Mor in the Outer Hebrides. She vividly describes the chill and rage of the North Atlantic, the job of a lighthouse keeper, and the loneliness and dynamics of people living in close quarters for weeks at a time away from loved ones.

Although I loved the premise of this book and was excited to read it, it fell flat. The storyline of the three lost keepers was captivating. The author created an atmospheric setting on the isolated island and the raw beauty of the formidable sea. Unfortunately, the other half of the book was tedious, and the characters were unlikable. The Lamplighters was eerie and haunting and would have been amazing if it had taken place at the turn of the century. In fact, had the author fictionalized the true events, her book would have been brilliant. As it stands, Lamplighters is completely different from the historical record. I’m sure others will love this book, but for me it was disappointing.

Perhaps it was just me, but I tended to get the characters confused. But, I love the premise and the different reactions of the women after their men vanish from a lighthouse.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to preview the book. Lamplighters is a fictional account of a real event that occurred in the early 20th century in the Outer Hebrides in which three lighthouse keepers seemingly disappeared, never to be found. The lighthouse in this title is in Cornwall and the disappearance takes place in 1972. Three men simply disappear from the lighthouse with the door locked from the inside. In 1992 a writer approaches the widows of the men asking for their input with his research for a book about the event. The chapters jump between 1972 the focus on the three men and their lives on the rock and 1992 when the focus shifts to the widows. Both 1972 time frame is interesting and sets the somewhat gothic tone of the novel. The 1992 chapters drag a bit although they do flesh out the mystery. I found the flow of the book much like the sea that plays such a critical part in the story - it ebbs and flows.

Based on a true story, where all three keepers vanish from a remote lighthouse. This version, set in 1972, finds the door locked from the inside, the clocks stopped, the table set for two (even though there were three men at the lighthouse), the log book recorded a storm that may or may not have happened. There are two timelines, one of the keepers of the lighthouse, the other set 30 years later, and recording the stories of the two wives and one girlfriend who told their versions of the story. I found the lighthouse keepers part of the story to be more interesting. The descriptions of the sea and life on the lighthouse are superb. The wives' stories, told 30 years later, just didn't seem to gel the way they should have. I found myself skimming through a lot of the story, trying to pick out the high points and the parts I needed to remember to keep everything straight.

I must admit that I was seriously drawn to this book because I had already found myself fascinated by the true events this title draws from. That would be the mysterious disappearance of all three lighthouse keepers on watch at a Flannan Isles lighthouse off the coast of Scotland back in 1900. When I stumbled upon the promotion for this book and read the blurb, I knew immediately I wanted to pick it up. This story does indeed centrally recreate a loose version of the true event in that the base outline of the plot sets up three lighthouse keepers and their mysterious disappearance. This is not a play by play reconstruction of the actual mystery but instead plays on the dynamics and hypotheticals that an event like this would set off in not only the mere solving of the mystery but what it meant for the relationships those three men left behind.

Emma Stonex does not solely serve a fresh cut mystery for this tale but blends it fluidly into a showing of much more than your typical whodunit reveal. This book includes the flashbacks in time of different perspectives. You have the personal monologues of all three lighthouse keepers as they trudge toward day zero of their own disappearances. This perspective was the most interesting and page-turning for me as it gives you an introspective, eerie fly on the wall look into the days before the event. You then have the personal monologues of the wives and girlfriend of the lighthouse keepers. They are being followed years and years after the event while they are speaking with an author who is seeking to write a book on the disappearances. This perspective brought more of a literary fiction pull to the story. It focused more on the relationships the women had with not only their significant others but with each other and the ever looming riptide of the lighthouse keeper life.

Each woman had a different relationship with their husband/boyfriend but a large part of this story is each character's relationship with the demanding career of a lighthouse keeper. For me, the lighthouse and the sea itself in this story are characters in their own right. While the chapters from the women's perspectives did slog for me here and there, I did enjoy the perspective they gave and the twists they peppered in plot-wise of several theories you will have reading through the book about how the keepers vanished. Oddly enough, I felt the most connected to one of the more minor characters in the book who happened to be the boatman that arrived to find the empty lighthouse. He's not in the story for very long, but the vanishing inflicts a haunting toll on all that drift into its foggy depths.

Overall, I expected this book to bring more of a mystery/suspense element than it did, but I still gave it 4 stars because of the beautiful writing. The way in which Stonex wrote of the sea and the way it weaved through the character's lives was very smooth and poetic. Even though the anguish and chaos developing on the page was heavy to read, the writing in this book really brought the story to life. 4 out of 5 stars. The light that this book put forth was not very illuminating at times, but it came through in the most crucial parts and brought me safely to shore. Haunting tale of relationships we have with the people and world around us and how we see life differently in the aftermath of loss. Solid read.

I would like to thank NetGalley and the publisher for an eARC of this title.

I had to slog through half of this book. I suppose given the subject matter, lighthouses are a lonely, boring subject matter. I was kind of hoping--when it seemed like there might be a supernatural element with the disappearing silver man--that it would have some kind of fantasy element. It didn't. And the "silver man" remained a mystery. The second half of the book picked up, but it wasn't enough for me to be highly entertained. It was just a bit boring.

The Lamplighters by Emma Stonex is a solid historical suspense tale of three lighthouse keepers who vanished without a trace - with the lighthouse door locked from the inside. I was intrigued to learn that this is loosely based on history: in 1900 in the Outer Hebrides, three lighthouse keepers really did disappear. For this book, the time period is changed to a 1972 disappearance alternating with the 1992 anniversary where we get a glimpse into how each of the three women left behind is faring.

The writing is excellent and the tone is haunting and atmospheric. The roiling sea felt like an unnamed character in the book.. The suspense remained high until the conclusion, which I found satisfying.

I will recommend this to readers who enjoy historical fiction combined with atmospheric suspense.

Thanks to Penguin Group Viking and NetGalley for the e-arc in exchange for my honest review.

This book was absolutely captivating. And spooky. And heartbreaking. And anxiety inducing. And I loved it. I'll never look at a lighthouse the same way again. I bought my own copy of this novel and I'm glad I did because it's one of those books that you just want to _own_.

I don’t really know where to start with this review....

Based on a true story, this was a captivating story. I really got caught up on wanting to know the truth and seeing everything come to a head...the writing itself was a little hard to grasp, especially when listening to this Ian audiobook format. Reading was much more enjoyable.

I didn’t love this book, but I also didn’t hate it.

Thank you for letting me give an open and honest review of the book.

Thank You to NetGalley and Penguin Viking for gifting me this incredible ARC. In exchange I offer my unbiased review. I apologize for the delay in posting my review. Book and audio are now available and I urge everyone to go out and purchase this tantalizing debut by Emma Stonex. I switched between audiobook & digital copy, both are wonderful. .

An atmospheric mystery/ thriller based on true events. This fictionalized story is told in dual timelines with multiple point of views. In 1972, three light keepers go missing from their post. The men are gone but the steel door is still locked from the inside, nothing looking disturbed and the table set as though the men were about to eat their morning breakfast. Twenty years later, an author sets out to solve the mystery, by interviewing the women who shared their lives with the light keepers.

This mystery slow.y unravels as we hear the mens point of view, as they share their daily loneliness, isolation & strength it takes to reside in the lighthouse. These chapters were more of a stream of consciences, that I felt worked better on audio. I was more engaged in hearing the women’s story, as they recall the months/days leading up to the men’s disappearance and then their lives following the tragedy.
My one quibble, it was sometimes confusing to sort and separate the many point of views.

I believe this would make for great bookclub discussion. A perfect summer read.

Eerie and ghostlike, the reader will never look at a lighthouse again without thinking of The Lamplighters. The men spend three months at the lighthouse on a rotation basis. This schedule could drive some men mad, disrupt families, involve ghosts, and divide the community.
On New Year's Eve, 1972, when the relief boat is finally able to bring supplies and rotate in a new lightkeeper, they are met with a locked door and no response. The rescuers batter down the door to find an empty lighthouse with the table set for a meal and no sign of the lamplighters. How and where did the three lamplighters disappear to--overnight? No distress call had been sent; no blood is found. The men have simple disappeared. Twenty years later the disappearance is still a mystery.

We have a podcast episode reviewing this novel and interviewing the author out now. Genre Junkies podcast is available on most podcast platform apps.

This novel took us by surprise by now captivating it was. Emma’s passion for this real life mystery was so beautifully expressed in an original piece of fiction. She has a distinct voice as a storyteller. We were especially impressed with how she made such nuanced and detailed characters. It’s hard to believe they aren’t real people! We also loved her sense of time and place. A haunting and beautiful read.

wasn't my type of book , but I still read it to be sure. Too much back and forth chatter of feelings. Lots of drama.

Despite the unique writing format, this mystery was so interesting and consuming. With a low-key style, the author builds the characters and offers several possible motives for the men’s disappearance. The ending does wrap the novel up with few loose ends to ponder.

Thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Random House for the ARC to read and review.

Unfortunately, this was a DNF for me. I couldn't get into the writing style, which is usually what stalls me out when reading a book. The way the characters talked...it felt like this was taking place in the 1800s, not in 1972 and 1992. I'm sure this is a case of "it's me", and plenty of people may like this book. But it wasn't what I was expecting/hoping for.