I received an ARC of this book via netgalley in exchange for an honest review. I am grateful for the opportunity. This feels like the longest book I have ever read. The best part was the initial chapter, the scene setting, the description of the sea and Jory's journey across it.

After this the narrative switches between the "voices" of the lighthouse keepers and those of their significant others as an author examines the circumstances surrounding the strange disappearance of 3 men from a lighthouse. The factual disappearance occurred in 1900 in the Outer Hebrides in but our author transports the events to a setting in 1972 Cornwall.

I really struggled with the pace of this book, the accounts of the women carried some underlying tension and emotion, a sense of suspense but the same cannot be said fot the narratives of the lighthouse keepers.

I feel like I have waded through a 7 or 800 page novel instead of one which barely achieved 300 pages. I cannot decide how to rate it because I did enjoy some of the female accounts and I liked the twist at the end as the author was revealed but OMG those tedious bits. In the end I have plumped for 2 rather than 1 star, maybe this is an author who will improve with experience but at the moment I cannot see me looking for more from her

I find it intereresting that no amount of google searching reveals the Pseudonym this author previously wrote under - were those books bad?

In 1972 three men disappear from a lighthouse. 20 years later in 1992 a writer tries to find the answer to their mysterious disappearance. Told from the lamplighters and their partners points of view it slowly builds up a picture of what may have happened. The subject has been very well researched and the author weaves a strong tale of what a life of isolation within a lighthouse must have been like. Although all along you are aware that there will not be a definite answer to what took place it does not detract from what for me was a good read.....a proper mystery!
Thank you to NetGalley, the author and the publisher for an arc of this book.

Thank you go Netgalley for giving me this Arc in return for an honest review.

This book blew me away. I don't quite have the words to explain how much I enjoyed the fantastic writing and enticing plot. If you're looking for something to read in 2021, put The Lamplighters are the top of your list!

The Lamplighters is, on the face of it, a locked-room mystery set in a lighthouse in 1972. Back then, three lighthouse keepers went missing while manning the sinister, remote Maiden lighthouse, a tower lighthouse in the middle of the sea. Twenty years later, an author wants to write a book about the vanishings, and the story is cleverly told through the eyes of the surviving wives and girlfriend of the three men. The story is told in dual-timeline, switching back and forth between the 1970s and the 1990s. I was utterly gripped by the slow-burn thrilling mystery, and the dark, sinister atmosphere inside the Maiden.

'Nothing changed in the aftermath of loss. Songs kept getting written. Books kept getting read.Wars didn't stop. You saw a couple arguing by the trolleys at Tesco before getting in the car and slamming the door. Life renewed itself, over and over without sympathy."

What powerful book, I really enjoyed reading this brilliantly described tale of human endurance. There were parts that sang so true and made or the more timely for those of us currently experiencing lockdown. The atmosphere of the lighthouse took on a whole new meaning and I could taste the isolation. Vivid and intriguing, this book explores the humanity behind loss and our forever need for explanation. We need the story but as the author writes: 'People will believe anything, and given the choice they prefer lies to the truth because lies are usually more interesting.' In a world suffering from another pandemic of fake news, again this hit hard. There is a real depth to this book and loved being lost in it's world for a while.

One to ponder over... thoroughly recommend.

Thank you to NetGalley & Pan Macmiller/Picador books for providing me with an ARC exchange for honest feedback.

The Lamplighters is actually inspired from a true life mystery event that happened in 1900 where 3 lighthouse keepers disappered mysteriously and not even a trace can be found.

The story moved with the plot happening in 1972 and twenty years later, 1992. 3 lighthouse keepers disappered without a trace from the lighthouse known as Maiden Rock in 1972. It also introduced the wife/partner of those men in 1992. Reader were introduced in form of POV of their wives/partner and some insight about their relationships towards those men.

While lighthouse keepers, those men were given a secret that they carried it along during their watch and slowly exposed to readers about their secret. As we got deeper, it was said that those men actually had a problematic relationship with their wives where it leads to the main events. Psychological state of these men also discussed in this book where supernatural events were born. Thus, this will solidify their disappearance.

At first, the pace is a bit slow as it is slow opened up the story. As we are continuing reading, the story of 1972 seems more interesting as the situation of how they got disappeared but 1992 seems lame for me. The one sided interviews bored me a bit. The emotions displayed by the wives/partner kind of lacking of something. However, others seems okay for me. Good enough but not too way good. I can still bear to read until the end in fact I stayed up to read because the needs to know what is actually happening.

A moody, mystery set off the coast of the South of England. This is loosely based on a true story where 3 lighthouse keepers went missing from a lighthouse off the coast of the Hebrides in Scotland in December 1900. You can't read this book without delving into the true story and trying to read everything you can find on the topic (or is that just me).

The novel has a sense of foreboding (maybe that is just lighthouses, loneliness and being by the sea), but it reminded me of The Light Between Oceans, where you are reading it with a sense of dread and an impending sense of doom. The authors descriptions of the sea are poetic, I found myself reading passages aloud to my husband (who grew up by the sea). I really got lost in those descriptions, I could feel the spray and taste the salt. It made me nostalgic that the Lighthouse Keepers job no longer exists, it is both romantic and isolating in equal measures.

Overall a great, worthwhile mystery and well researched.

A good promising start with lots of mystery into the lives of lighthouse keepers and their families, however there are areas of prose regarding child abuse and animal cruelty that may put off some readers.

I was intrigued by this story, the blurb sounded interesting, and it was, but I did find that the story did drag a bit at times so it was quite slow going.

This book caught me unawares. It is a reflection on life's mysteries and how different people deal with grief and disappointment. I loved the setting and Emma Stonex builds the tension and climax with reservation and subtle skill. The characters are real and vivid- some sympathetic, some infuriating.

The isolation and life of the Lighthouse keepers is well researched and had]s stayed with me for days.

The Lamplighters appears to be a book of all trades - part mystery, part family, part history, part ghostly.

The first few chapters gave a good impression of the scene and the men involved at the start, and I didn't mind the change in tone between 1972 and 1992, but I still felt the book lacked depth. The selfish moaning of those left behind was too much for me and irrelevant to where I felt the novel was headed. A wasted opportunity to have turned this book into a must read, but I guess it will instead appeal to a wider genre.

This story takes place in 1972 when 3 lighthouse keepers mysteriously disappear from a lighthouse called Maiden Rock. It jumps between 1972 and 1992, this is when we read about the keepers wives and their lives since the disappearances and events leading to the time in 1972.

The book was inspired by events that actually happened back in 1900, this is what attracted me to the book. I didn’t find this the easiest of reads, I found some parts to be quite tedious. Having said that, I did find that I was intrigued mostly and couldn’t wait to find out how the story ended.

The authors descriptive writing was fantastic and flowed beautifully. I can’t begin to imagine the amount of research the author had to do to write this story!

My thanks to NetGalley and Pan Macmillan for my copy in exchange for an honest review.

Well written, but I didn’t feel particularly compelled by the story or the characters. I found the denouement slightly underwhelming.

Haunting, sombre and reflective, 'The Lamplighters' by Emma Stonex was a pleasant surprise for my first read of 2021. Set on the Cornish coast, the story alternates between 1972 and 1992 and the unexplained disappearance of three lighthouse keepers.

The book is inspired by the similar events of 1900 in the Outer Hebrides, which also prompted Wilfrid Gibson to write Flannan Isle, the poem for which he is best known. The disappearance has become lodged in our cultural consciousness and it has long been a popular pastime to suggest potential solutions to the mystery, from school classrooms to the big screen. Just look at the recent Gerald Butler flick, 'The Vanishing', or hilarious lowlight, 'The Horror of Fang Rock'. Robert Eggers' recent entry in the sub-genre, 'The Lighthouse', starring Wilhelm Dafoe and Robert Pattinson, shares a sense of the mad absurdity and psychological trauma which this novel delves into.

Into this history, Stonex confidently wades. She skilfully engages with the past while addressing the cultural obsession that has fuelled the creativity of so many, all while rooting her revised version of the tale in the isolation of the lamplighters and the feelings of loss experienced by those left behind.

The mystery slowly unravels as details are gradually revealed, kept buried by the bereaved for so long. At the heart of the unspooling thread, however, was not the comprehensive and definitive answer to all the questions which I feared, but an ambiguous ending which satisfies the reader and leaves ample room to form one's own conclusions from the clues dropped along the way.

Reading in the dark at night, there was the occasional supernatural occurrence (The Silver Man, a mysterious boat with a broken sail) which made my hairs stand on end. Though The Lamplighters is not a horror novel, it had me looking around the room to make sure there was nothing lurking there.

The novel is written in a fairly unconventional style, eschewing straightforward story-telling in favour of getting inside the heads of the characters. It's about 90 percent inner monologue, but it suits the book's aim: this is a story of loss, isolation and grief. It's about finding the right story to believe to keep you going on in the midst of uncertainty.

Life as a lighthouse keeper certainly has it’s challenges and the back stories of Arthur, Bill , Vince, Helen, Jenny and Michelle add more twists, turns and a-ha moments. As the story develops the foibles of the characters and dramatic irony result in the reader knowing more than any of those involved. While theories abound about what happened to the three men, I certainly wasn’t expecting the final denouement.

I read the book in three days and found myself drawn into the story and wanting to know more about the men. Personally, I felt that some aspects would have benefitted from more detail and some of the surprise elements of the story could have been further developed and that this would have made the book a more rounded read.

I liked The Lamplighters by Emma Stonex a lot. I was aware of the story it was "based" on and I really like that Stonex took it in a different direction. The opening chapters were so wonderfully atmospheric and the 20 year time jump works wonderfully. It's the kind of novel you could buy for anyone - readers of any age and genre preference will like this novel!

The Lamplighters is a thought provoking read, based on real life events. It's a beautiful love story intertwined with a mysterious ghost story. The plot flows extremely well and is well paced making it an extremely enjoyable read and one you will want to recommend to friends.

The Lamplighters is inspired by real events and is a beautifully written novel that really gripped hold of me over several days. In Cornwall, in 1972 ,three lighthouse keepers vanish from their lighthouse, twenty years later we meet the three women left behind struggling with their grief and inability to move on from the unexplained tragedy. This is not a fast paced thriller but a slow, atmospheric read told from multiple points of view which really brings to life the reality of the lives of the men and their families.
Highly recommended
Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a digital ARC

This book had so much promise, 3 men in a lighthouse out at sea, mysteriously go missing, the doors still locked, food on the table but the keepers nowhere to be found. However The Lamplighters just didn’t do it for me, for a few reasons. The biggest reason was the arrangement of the book, this story jumps from being with the men in the lighthouse, building up to their disappearance, to chapters 30 years later with the wives/girlfriends of the missing men talking to a journalist on the mainland, and it kinda felt like 2 different books. The women’s chapters felt very petty and boring, you jump from a sinister ‘silver man’ possibly threatening the lighthouse to a widow still talking 30 years later about her dead husband cheating on her and honestly I didn’t care. Personally, one narrative on the homeland would’ve been enough and used less but it jumped around too much and killed the suspense for me.
I will say the writing is great, the descriptions in the lighthouse are very atmospheric and you really get the suffocating, oppressing feel of the small lighthouse holding 3 very complex men and their drama, feeling like caged animals that pace throughout the books, making the lighthouse and the sea itself both characters in their own right alongside the men.

Stoke the fire, pull up an arm chair, pour a whisky and immerse yourself in this mysterious tale of the sea. Through the spitting foam and unforgiving surf, a vessel arrives bringing relief to the three keepers of The Maiden, a tower lighthouse, which defiantly guards its part of Britain’s shoreline.Instead of a rapturous welcome, no one is to be found, the main door is bolted from the inside and there are no signs of a struggle. What could have befallen the isolated crew?
Layers of intrigue are slowly pared away like weather beaten paint,drawing you in to the lives of not only the missing men, but their backgrounds and families, until the chilling conclusion. Apart from the atmospheric story itself, you can’t help but feel awe and compassion for the lighthouse keepers of old, a vocation requiring heroism, dedication and selflessness for the protection of others. You realise that although these men lived alone for several weeks at a time, it was a team effort, with their wives holding things together back home. A wonderfully evocative book which will entice, thrill and leave you almost inhaling the sea air itself.