Beckoning Beacon

I have always been enamored of lighthouses. When I was a child, when we vacationed at the Jersey Shore, my father and I would drive down to Cape May Point where we climbed the spiraling staircase to the top of the lighthouse to scan out across the vast Atlantic Ocean trying to spot ships far out at sea.

The lighthouse, by then, was no longer in operation, but it and the small keeper's house next to was a maritime museum, as it still is today. But on the tippy-top holding tight to my father's arm with one hand and the iron railing surrounding the large, unlit lamp with the other, feeling the wind and salty spray against my cheeks, I could still feel a sense of adventure. And wonder.

Most of our nation's lighthouses are unmanned today; their lights are electronic and automatically run by computers inland. But imagine a hundred years or so ago when they were maintained by humans. What would the life of a lonely lighthouse keeper and, perhaps, his family have been like? Often separated from civilization for months at a time by miles and miles of water and/or uninhabitable coastline, how did they sustain themselves? What stories could be told about them? What mysteries may lay along the shoreline from whose deadly shoals and rocks they warned ships away?

The aura, mystery, and mystique of keeping a lighthouse is brought back to life in vivid color by Christina Schwarz whose fourth novel, The Edge of the Earth , was published last month. I was fortunate enough to be sent a copy of it by the publisher through the auspices of www.authorexposure.com and was thoroughly enchantingly mesmerized for day and a half reading it.

Follow the link above and read my review of this stunningly refreshing historical novel. I warrant that you'll want to pick up a copy and read it this weekend.