BOOK REVIEW: Keeper of the Light trilogy

While in the Outer Banks recently, it only seemed fitting that I read Diane Chamberlain’s trilogy set  around a fictional lighthouse near the town of Duck, North Carolina. Each of the three books, KEEPER OF THE LIGHT, KISS RIVER, and HER MOTHER'S SHADOW could stand alone, but they make a bigger impact if read in order.

KEEPER OF THE LIGHT introduces us to Annie O’ Neill and her family in an unusual way. Annie has been rushed to the emergency room with a gunshot wound. She had been volunteering at a women’s shelter and an irate husband had come in and started shooting. Annie had thrown herself in front of the man’s wife and young son, taking the bullet through her own heart.

The attending physician, Doctor Olivia Simon has to make the call whether to operate immediately or life-flight Annie to a larger facility, a flight that would surely be fatal to the patient. At this point Olivia realizes that her patient is the woman her husband Paul is in love with. Despite Olivia’s efforts, Annie dies.

Annie has been known as St. Annie to the area as well as to her family. Her husband,Alex, felt that he had the perfect marriage with the perfect woman and his teenage son and daughter,Clay and Lacy, worshiped their mother. Olivia, Paul, Alex, Clay and Lacy, as well as a community who had dubbed her “ St. Annie”, have to come to terms with Annie’s death and the secrets that should have died with her.

Although Annie is killed on the first page of the first book in the series, she is the driving force for all three books and her story should be read before moving on to the other two books.

KISS RIVER picks up the O’Neill’s lives when Clay and Lacy are adults. This second in the trilogy deals mainly with Clay and the fight to save the Kiss River Lighthouse, which has been the setting for much of the O’Neill’s past and present. HER MOTHER'S SHADOW is Lacy’s story and a wrap up of some loose ends. Some truths, although foreshadowed through all three books, still came as a surprise to me.

This was a story full of interesting, flawed characters and because it takes three books to tell us about them, we feel close to each person. A lot of Annie’s story is told in flashbacks and it is easier to feel sympathy for her than not. There are twists and turns in the plot on every page. One interesting part, told through an old diary, deals with the Outer Banks and their importance during the Second World War and how close German U-boats got to shore.

This was the perfect book to read on vacation, especially reading it on location, so to speak. The best thing that I can say about it is that I was very sorry to have to leave the company of the O’Neill’s and their extended family.