I only have one negative comment about FROM A DISTANCE. I will state it now and be done with it. The lighthouse on the cover of the book does not have red stripes on it like the one in the story does. That being said, I have only praise for what Raffaella Barker wrote between the covers.

April, 1946, World War II is over and the soldiers are finally coming home. Michael disembarks from a troop ship in the harbor of Southampton. Having survived the war when so many, including his brother did not, Michael feels unworthy to re-build a happy life. Instead of taking the train to his home in Norfolk, he impulsively boards a train for opposite direction—to Cornwall. The consequences of that action have far-reaching results.

Fifty or so years later, a mysterious stranger comes to Norfolk to half-heartedly claim an inheritance— a de- commissioned lighthouse. Kit--short for Christopher—illuminates the lives of all his new Norfolk friends. He is the one who shows the way to all the others; the one who makes Luisa visible again, who helps them realize their dreams. He is unaware that this will be his role.

Raffaella Barker shifts the focus between the post-war artists' colony in St. Ives and present day Norfolk flawlessly. This shift is echoed in a theme that is ever present in the book--that of perspective. As Luisa, one of the Norfolk people, thinks what she sees and hears isn't what someone else might see and hear.

Throughout the book, the spotlight is placed on individuals, their lives, their choices, and the impact of their decisions on others. It is only after the whole book has been read that we can step way back and see the big picture. We can only do that FROM A DISTANCE.

(I can't believe that I wrote the entire review without any mention of the references throughout of Virginia Woolf's book, To the Lighthouse. They are very discreetly done, but any reader of Ms. Woolf will be able to spot them and recognize some of the common threads in both books. Definitely a bonus!)