The Lighthouse Keeper by Alan K. Baker.

The Lighthouse Keeper by Alan K. Baker
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

‘We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far: - H. P. Lovecraft.’
Based on a real genuine mystery of three lighthouse keepers going missing from the Flannan isles light in the winter of 1900-1901. The lighthouse keeper is both a work of supernatural fiction and true events to spook anyone who is interested in real life events and the supernatural.

July 1999 sees five environmental researchers arrive on the island of Eilean Mòr (Big Island in Gaelic) and set up their camp at the island base. Above them, a little higher up sits the lighthouse in which the book is set against, even within the first chapter, the reader already knows that there is trouble brewing for the people who has just arrived when their equipment is playing up already, showing things which seem to vanish just as quick as it had appeared.
Rebecca Garratt is one of the main characters who explores the island and comes across the ruin remains of a chapel a few meters away from the lighthouse itself. Through seeing something, she finds herself moving closer to the ruins and searching for the animal she was sure she had seen. With looking, Rebecca soon finds that there is no animal in the ruins and is about to leave again when something catches her eye in the dirt, half buried in the earth.

When she finally retrieves the two hidden items, Rebecca discovers that one is a strangely shaped stone while the other is a small package wrapped up in a heavy and thick material. As much as the stone seems strange, she focuses her attention on the package which is tied with a thon of rotted leather, something which seems to break apart as soon as Rebecca tries to untie it, showing that the age of the item had been buried for many years.
Rebecca is joined by Nick and Max, another two of the group by the time she unwraps the package to find that it is an oilskin book, a log book to be exact.
It isn’t long before the three of them discover that it is the log book kept by a man called Alex Dalemore, a relief keeper on Eilean Mòr back in the 1900’s.

As the story continues and Rebecca starts to read the entries in Alex Dalemore’s log book, the five researchers soon find themselves in a world of unexplainable happenings. With each chapter read, more and more things are starting to line themselves up with the events which happens 99 years before hand during the disappearance of the three lighthouse keepers and when Alex Dalemore himself, was on the very same island.

When the testament of Alex Dalemore ends, the five characters suddenly finds themselves all alone with no hope or understanding of the things which had been happening to them and the old lighthouse keepers and with a sudden storm cutting of their only escape from the island, the researchers soon finds that the writings of Alex Dalemore is more of a warning to other’s than just a story of boredom.

The lighthouse keeper is a book of events which throws the reader back and forth between the present day and the past, it’s a story with so many different twists and turns that it’s hard to place down once you start to read.

Based between the real disappearance of the keepers and the supernatural, this book keeps you on the edge of your seat with each chapter, it leaves you with the wanting knowledge of what it haunting the researchers in 1999 as well as the lighthouse keepers back in 1900.
The lighthouse keeper by Alan K. Baker is a book perfect for anyone who likes to read novels about the supernatural as well as for people who likes the historical sides of fiction. It captures your attention and pull’s you in to the story, almost as if you yourself was on the island in both years.
A truly fantastic book.

9/10 stars for the book itself, it is well written and easy to understand for anyone over the age of twelve. Alan K. Baker is an author who did plenty of research in to the background of Eilean Mòr before writing the book itself.


View all my reviews