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Middle Watch
Middle Watch is a time when a man alone on a lighthouse in those wee small hours feels he's the only person in the world. A man awake and alone in the darkness of the night has time to think, and sometimes those thoughts turn towards revenge and hate. Bridie O'Neill was taken in as a baby by Dad Joe, whom she adores as if he were her real father. Unfortunately, Joe is away at sea most of the time and Bridie has grown up under the thumb of his mean-spirited wife, Millie, and her two bullying sons. The only joy in her life comes from the beautiful coastline near their home and Joe's occasional visits. When things come to a head between Bridie and Millie, Joe realises he needs to take Bridie - and himself - away from his poisonous wife. He starts a job as a lighthouse keeper at Longships Light. Bridie's life is transformed by this new life close to the wild Cornish seas. There she meets the dark, brooding Ryan, son of the Principal Keeper. The two young people fall deeply in love with one another. But Joe's family are not ready to let Bridie go. She is haunted by the idea that Millie will come after her, and Joe's older son Jim is starting to look at Bridie with a most unbrotherly interest. Wanting to escape the emotional turmoil and prove herself, Bridie sets out on her own to find work in London - but her actions set forth a chain of events that will end in tragedy on a lonely lighthouse amongst the crashing waves of the sea...
352 pages, Paperback
First published December 20, 2005
4 people are currently reading
414 people want to read
About the author
Loretta Proctor
6 books17 followersWriting and book reading are in the blood. My great grandad used to travel around Turkey carrying a trunk full of his beloved books and during WW2, my Dad wrote 40 page letters in French to my Mother from the desert! So he might well have got round to a novel or two if he had lived long enough.
I gave up writing for years but have now resurfaced in my later life and published two books, written six. My daughter who is in publishing helps edit the books so they're not just my vain outpourings. I simply want to share my tales with those few who care about it. It's good to have readers otherwise I would be like an actor with an empty auditorium.
My first novel The Long Shadow was wriiten in 2005 and published in the States long before Victoria Hislop turned her eye on Greece! Strangely I also wrote a story about Spinalonga, the leper island off Crete, in the 1980's but she beat me to it on that one as I never did get round to publishing it. Maybe some day. It's a totally different story to The Island. :-) Interesting how writers can approach a subject from quite different angles.
I gave up writing for years but have now resurfaced in my later life and published two books, written six. My daughter who is in publishing helps edit the books so they're not just my vain outpourings. I simply want to share my tales with those few who care about it. It's good to have readers otherwise I would be like an actor with an empty auditorium.
My first novel The Long Shadow was wriiten in 2005 and published in the States long before Victoria Hislop turned her eye on Greece! Strangely I also wrote a story about Spinalonga, the leper island off Crete, in the 1980's but she beat me to it on that one as I never did get round to publishing it. Maybe some day. It's a totally different story to The Island. :-) Interesting how writers can approach a subject from quite different angles.
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
September 30, 2013
Great tale that will make you sad, happy and angry at the same time
April 25, 2012
This stunning, satisfying, profoundly moving, unforgettable novel reminded me a bit of Du Maurier's "Rebecca..." The protagonist is a young woman we meet in childhood and follow throughout young adulthood. Her story is told in first person; like "Rebecca," there is another shadowy, otherworldly character---well, two, really: the sea and lighthouses. Both come to life along with Bridie O'Neill, and create a magical setting that creeps out of the pages and surrounds you, bringing hints of saltwater and sea spray, of broken ships and beams of light, of primordial struggles, the hypnotizing sound of the foghorn, the unforgiving remoteness, the love and endlessly mesmerizing fascination of the ocean.
After the sea grabs you, Middle Watch then throws two fierce, uncompromising, unforgiving and mesmerizing men into the mix---two men who will go to almost any lengths to win the heart of Bridie O'Neill. (One will truly go to any lengths.) This deepens the tale, bringing in the human elements of jealousy, possession, and violence.
Other reviewers have expertly covered the story and plot. So I choose to add some (not even close to all) of the phrases and segments that moved me. They speak for themselves.
One last comment about Middle Watch. There is a part near the end I would call controversial. I had a hard time with it. It took reflection, time, and contemplation to put it in perspective, to remember the long history between the two characters involved. And it shows the courage of the author, who has chosen to not shy away from reality, who chose not to create a fairytale, stereotypical romance but a raw, real, ripping kind of truth---the only kind of truth the sea will accept.
"Middle Watch is a time when a man alone on a lighthouse in those wee small hours feels he's the only person in the world. A man awake and alone in the darkness of the night has time to think, and sometimes those thoughts turn towards revenge and hate."
"I'd been bred to serve, to feel inferior and unwanted for too long."
"Middle, or `guts', as they called it, was between midnight and four a.m. and the loneliest of all the watches."
"Wind and waves and the cruel sea. Some days the waves come crashing almost over the top of the light. You get used to the constant drumming of it all, drumming away at the sides like it was asking to come in. it's a living, breathing being is the sea and we have to treat it like one, take note of what it's trying to say, skirt round its moods and furies and storms. Then be peaceful with it when it's feeling content and happy and still as glass."
"The Cornishmen had long resisted having a lighthouse here because they made their living in those old days plundering the wrecks, even luring ships falsely ashore onto the treacherous rocks."
"I wasn't personally the one who sent off the torpedoes, but I was a part of it all and cheered as much as anyone when we scored a hit and sank a German destroyer or U-boat. To hell with the men on it, ordinary sailors obeying orders like ourselves--they weren't human any more, they were the enemy and we'd hit the enemy, got a bull's-eye. We all have it in us to kill others."
"When you're up doing middle watch, you can walk out on the gallery and look up at them and they seem to go for miles up and around; limitless, galaxies beyond ours, suns and planets we know nothing about. And you are the only human being in existence looking at them, like some god just looking at Creation. That's how it feels."
"These people came to gawp; they had no real understanding or respect for that mighty watery world out there. They moaned if it wasn't non-stop sunny for the few miserable moments they chose to come and invade the shores. As if the weather gods cared about them and their pallid, flaccid townie bodies and the sudden fashion to be browned off like a Sunday roast!"
"I loved it most when the wind whipped up my hair and almost blew me into the waves; when I was the plaything of the elements yet totally alive, conscious, flowing with it all."
"The fair lad and the dark one standing their ground and me--as always--piggy in the middle. I gaped at them both and felt like a heroine in a book. Boring Bridie Bosworth, a heroine in a book."
"Start Point was situated on a lonely peninsula and had guided vessels through the English Channel for over a century. It was a beautiful circular building with a crenulated top and at nights it looked like some huge candle on an iced cake. I loved to see it silhouetted against the horizon at sundown, gleaming white in the sunshine or looming up in the sea mists like a ghost."
"There was a look about these men that was the same. Their faces were hewn as if from granite, hard, rough, weather-beaten, yet with great nobility and wisdom in their eyes. I thought they were all marvellous human beings and understood why Ryan felt they were the only kind of men he could trust, men of the sea, men with the wind and the waves singing in their blood."
"Wouldn't it just be simpler to give in and go along with Ryan, flow with the current like an unmoored boat? But I couldn't. Some spirit of self preservation made me feel a desperate need to flow against it, to swim upstream like a salmon and find my way back to my own true self."
"Standing at the edge of the cliffs on the right, one looked down a sheer drop to a surging, boiling sea that never seemed to be still. Used as I was to the sea and cliffs, that particular view often gave me vertigo. It made me feel dizzy, as if I wanted to throw myself over into that maelstrom below, so strong was the pull of the foaming sea."
"It was a regular graveyard in the ocean out there, and the eerie echoes in the wind sometimes sounded like the ghostly cries of long dead men."
"I stood for a little while, listening to the pounding and thundering of the waves on the sea shore below and felt a wild sense of ecstasy. A crescent Moon shone fitfully through a few clouds that moved across her as if she was a shy maiden drawing a veil across her face."
"He smiled and kissed my cheek. "You are my peace, Bridie, my rest, my meditation, my everything. I would never not want you with me."
"Perhaps it was better that way, better we didn't know or admit the truth and have to face those demons head on. They always said you should only look at the Gorgon in a mirror, see her reflection and never stare her in the face."
After the sea grabs you, Middle Watch then throws two fierce, uncompromising, unforgiving and mesmerizing men into the mix---two men who will go to almost any lengths to win the heart of Bridie O'Neill. (One will truly go to any lengths.) This deepens the tale, bringing in the human elements of jealousy, possession, and violence.
Other reviewers have expertly covered the story and plot. So I choose to add some (not even close to all) of the phrases and segments that moved me. They speak for themselves.
One last comment about Middle Watch. There is a part near the end I would call controversial. I had a hard time with it. It took reflection, time, and contemplation to put it in perspective, to remember the long history between the two characters involved. And it shows the courage of the author, who has chosen to not shy away from reality, who chose not to create a fairytale, stereotypical romance but a raw, real, ripping kind of truth---the only kind of truth the sea will accept.
"Middle Watch is a time when a man alone on a lighthouse in those wee small hours feels he's the only person in the world. A man awake and alone in the darkness of the night has time to think, and sometimes those thoughts turn towards revenge and hate."
"I'd been bred to serve, to feel inferior and unwanted for too long."
"Middle, or `guts', as they called it, was between midnight and four a.m. and the loneliest of all the watches."
"Wind and waves and the cruel sea. Some days the waves come crashing almost over the top of the light. You get used to the constant drumming of it all, drumming away at the sides like it was asking to come in. it's a living, breathing being is the sea and we have to treat it like one, take note of what it's trying to say, skirt round its moods and furies and storms. Then be peaceful with it when it's feeling content and happy and still as glass."
"The Cornishmen had long resisted having a lighthouse here because they made their living in those old days plundering the wrecks, even luring ships falsely ashore onto the treacherous rocks."
"I wasn't personally the one who sent off the torpedoes, but I was a part of it all and cheered as much as anyone when we scored a hit and sank a German destroyer or U-boat. To hell with the men on it, ordinary sailors obeying orders like ourselves--they weren't human any more, they were the enemy and we'd hit the enemy, got a bull's-eye. We all have it in us to kill others."
"When you're up doing middle watch, you can walk out on the gallery and look up at them and they seem to go for miles up and around; limitless, galaxies beyond ours, suns and planets we know nothing about. And you are the only human being in existence looking at them, like some god just looking at Creation. That's how it feels."
"These people came to gawp; they had no real understanding or respect for that mighty watery world out there. They moaned if it wasn't non-stop sunny for the few miserable moments they chose to come and invade the shores. As if the weather gods cared about them and their pallid, flaccid townie bodies and the sudden fashion to be browned off like a Sunday roast!"
"I loved it most when the wind whipped up my hair and almost blew me into the waves; when I was the plaything of the elements yet totally alive, conscious, flowing with it all."
"The fair lad and the dark one standing their ground and me--as always--piggy in the middle. I gaped at them both and felt like a heroine in a book. Boring Bridie Bosworth, a heroine in a book."
"Start Point was situated on a lonely peninsula and had guided vessels through the English Channel for over a century. It was a beautiful circular building with a crenulated top and at nights it looked like some huge candle on an iced cake. I loved to see it silhouetted against the horizon at sundown, gleaming white in the sunshine or looming up in the sea mists like a ghost."
"There was a look about these men that was the same. Their faces were hewn as if from granite, hard, rough, weather-beaten, yet with great nobility and wisdom in their eyes. I thought they were all marvellous human beings and understood why Ryan felt they were the only kind of men he could trust, men of the sea, men with the wind and the waves singing in their blood."
"Wouldn't it just be simpler to give in and go along with Ryan, flow with the current like an unmoored boat? But I couldn't. Some spirit of self preservation made me feel a desperate need to flow against it, to swim upstream like a salmon and find my way back to my own true self."
"Standing at the edge of the cliffs on the right, one looked down a sheer drop to a surging, boiling sea that never seemed to be still. Used as I was to the sea and cliffs, that particular view often gave me vertigo. It made me feel dizzy, as if I wanted to throw myself over into that maelstrom below, so strong was the pull of the foaming sea."
"It was a regular graveyard in the ocean out there, and the eerie echoes in the wind sometimes sounded like the ghostly cries of long dead men."
"I stood for a little while, listening to the pounding and thundering of the waves on the sea shore below and felt a wild sense of ecstasy. A crescent Moon shone fitfully through a few clouds that moved across her as if she was a shy maiden drawing a veil across her face."
"He smiled and kissed my cheek. "You are my peace, Bridie, my rest, my meditation, my everything. I would never not want you with me."
"Perhaps it was better that way, better we didn't know or admit the truth and have to face those demons head on. They always said you should only look at the Gorgon in a mirror, see her reflection and never stare her in the face."
March 20, 2012
This is not the first book by Loretta Proctor I have read so I began it with pleasureable anticipation and was not disappointed in fact I found this one the best yet - and that's saying something. The background for the book has been well researched and the reader experiences the solitary way of life of the men and families of the lighthouse keepers. Reading it, you can taste the salt from the sea-spray, hear the sea-birds call and feel at one with nature in all its raw beauty. Bridie O'Neill tell her own story and the reader becomes a part of it, feeling her emotional ups and downs, hopes and fears. This is a book a sincerely recommend to all lovers romantic sagas.
October 28, 2021
Not quite as good as I expected
It was almost inevitable from the very beginning that one of the suiters would die - I could have predicted the end from the beginning - sad!!
It was almost inevitable from the very beginning that one of the suiters would die - I could have predicted the end from the beginning - sad!!
May 18, 2012
Orphaned by her parents’ deaths, that is hardly Bridie O’Neill’s biggest problem. The horrible foster mother she ends up with is somewhat balanced by her loving foster father, but he is rarely at home, leaving Bridie to suffer in silence. To Bridie, this will always be her life. She has accepted that fact. So when news comes that Dad Joe has taken a new job as a lighthouse keeper and intends to take Bridie with him, she is stunned and overjoyed. Her happily ever after hasn’t arrived just yet, however. Unwanted and unbrotherly attentions from Jim, loving yet domineering attention from Ryan, and the urge to find out who Bridie really is are waiting for her at the lighthouses.
I mentioned yesterday in my post how much I enjoyed the descriptions and imagery in Middle Watch. It was like being on a tour of the English seaside. Loretta Proctor did a wonderful job of pulling you into every scene of the book with her details of the scenery. Her attention to detail didn’t stop there, however. While not all of the characters were meant to be likable, they were all very interesting and unique. The two love interests, Bridie’s foster brother Jim and her friend Ryan, are as different as night and day. Both have sweet aspects to their characters as well and scary, but they were unique even in their similarities. Loretta also did a great job of keeping her characters consistent through the book.
Bridie is the most fascinating of all the characters. She is so complex and multifaceted. The poor girl lived through so much pain and heartache before getting to have even a little joy. I enjoyed seeing her start out as a child, so accepting of the brutality laid on her and unwilling to fight, and grow into a stronger woman. Having said that, I had been hoping that by the end of the book Bridie would have progressed a little more than she did.
I’ll warn you, there may be a few spoilers in this next part, so feel free to skip if you want.
At one point in the book Bridie tells Ryan that she needs some space and some time to discover who she really is and what she wants from life. The trip to London proves more difficult than she expected, but I had been glad she was brave enough to venture out on her own. The trials she faces there didn’t have the effect I was hoping for, in some ways. Yes Bridie was made stronger by having to face difficult situations, but I felt like when she returned home she lost some of that strength. I wanted her to stand up for herself and take the initiative more, especially when it came to talking to Ryan about Jim, and I wanted her to be the one to bring a resolution to her problems with Jim. I wasn’t totally sure why she felt like Ryan wouldn’t believe her about her issues with Jim either, but perhaps that was due more to the time period and society at that time.
Loretta had warned me that there was a shock at the end, and indeed there was. I had a suspicion a few chapters earlier of what the surprise would be, but I was glad Loretta chose the ending she did. I felt like it was very fitting.
Overall, Middle Watch was an enjoyable book. It captured a side of humanity many would prefer to overlook, and it created a crisp picture of what life was like during that time period. Loretta’s writing felt very authentic, and truly pulled you into Bridie’s life. The lighthouse aspect of the book was beautiful as well. I learned quite a bit out lighthouses and their keepers that I had never known before. I came to appreciate their hard work and their dedication to a craft that is now extinct in most aspects. I’ve mentioned before that previously I was not a big historical fiction reader, but I am beginning to appreciate it quite a bit.
I mentioned yesterday in my post how much I enjoyed the descriptions and imagery in Middle Watch. It was like being on a tour of the English seaside. Loretta Proctor did a wonderful job of pulling you into every scene of the book with her details of the scenery. Her attention to detail didn’t stop there, however. While not all of the characters were meant to be likable, they were all very interesting and unique. The two love interests, Bridie’s foster brother Jim and her friend Ryan, are as different as night and day. Both have sweet aspects to their characters as well and scary, but they were unique even in their similarities. Loretta also did a great job of keeping her characters consistent through the book.
Bridie is the most fascinating of all the characters. She is so complex and multifaceted. The poor girl lived through so much pain and heartache before getting to have even a little joy. I enjoyed seeing her start out as a child, so accepting of the brutality laid on her and unwilling to fight, and grow into a stronger woman. Having said that, I had been hoping that by the end of the book Bridie would have progressed a little more than she did.
I’ll warn you, there may be a few spoilers in this next part, so feel free to skip if you want.
At one point in the book Bridie tells Ryan that she needs some space and some time to discover who she really is and what she wants from life. The trip to London proves more difficult than she expected, but I had been glad she was brave enough to venture out on her own. The trials she faces there didn’t have the effect I was hoping for, in some ways. Yes Bridie was made stronger by having to face difficult situations, but I felt like when she returned home she lost some of that strength. I wanted her to stand up for herself and take the initiative more, especially when it came to talking to Ryan about Jim, and I wanted her to be the one to bring a resolution to her problems with Jim. I wasn’t totally sure why she felt like Ryan wouldn’t believe her about her issues with Jim either, but perhaps that was due more to the time period and society at that time.
Loretta had warned me that there was a shock at the end, and indeed there was. I had a suspicion a few chapters earlier of what the surprise would be, but I was glad Loretta chose the ending she did. I felt like it was very fitting.
Overall, Middle Watch was an enjoyable book. It captured a side of humanity many would prefer to overlook, and it created a crisp picture of what life was like during that time period. Loretta’s writing felt very authentic, and truly pulled you into Bridie’s life. The lighthouse aspect of the book was beautiful as well. I learned quite a bit out lighthouses and their keepers that I had never known before. I came to appreciate their hard work and their dedication to a craft that is now extinct in most aspects. I’ve mentioned before that previously I was not a big historical fiction reader, but I am beginning to appreciate it quite a bit.
February 28, 2012
Frank, unpretentious, lucid, with the feel almost of a diary yet so carried forward by the fluid style that it reads at a pace. The early pages encapsulate so much of the back story without needing to linger or digress at the expense of the narrative so that I felt immediately involved and on board with the candid first person style.
The facts need no dressing as we witness the emotional distance between the narrator, Bridie, who has lost her real father to be adopted by the good "Dad Joe" as she affectionately calls her foster father, but who also passes into the hands of Joe's resentful and jealous wife, Millie, named with something far affection as "Mean" Millie. Millie is consumed with jealousy because Bridie's love for her adoptive 'Dad', the angst clear from Millie's nickname for the child in her care "Little Miss Nobody". Bridie's feeling of being unwanted is intensified when Mean Millie's son, Andy, not only bullies Bridie but seems almost to get his mother's approval in doing so.
We have to remember that this is not just domestic discord, for Bridie has early lost both her mother and her father while the world in which she might have found sanctuary is, with the exception of Dad Joe, a cauldron of jealousy, resentment and rejection - "Thank God, you're not mine... I'd be ashamed to claim you," Mean Millie reminds the hapless child. The effect on Bridie is simply - yet quite beautifully - expressed when we view her, alone with Dad Joe after he has returned from sea and they go down to the seashore together.
Of the incessant ebb and flow, Bridie finds the sea "Frightening, majestic, terrible, it never stopped, it was never still, yet looking over its vastness, I felt stillness in my soul. It was a paradox I would never understand." Nor shall I, but at least Bridie enjoyed that stillness and brings it closer to the reader.
Themes universal, and we feel the echo of the author's opening quote from Wordsworth's Ode: Intimations of Immortality, but the treatment bears the stamp of a genuinely individual writer who carries conviction with her sheer sincerity of observation and absence of any false sentiment - the whole making a quiet impact rather than a hollow or deafening ring that might have announced itself, like an unfortunate marriage getting too close to a church bell.
And so the need for a truer sense of identity and bonding, first as a daughter to her surrogate Dad, Joe, and then to her lover, Ryan, who is so often distanced from her as he takes up "his lonely sojourn on a lighthouse far from humanity". Bridie's isolation is gradually built and is the more powerfully made when the lighthouse once again visits upon Bridie's life a deeper and more painful loss.
The narrative is masterfully condensed so that the reader can be propelled forward in time often with a few very judicious brush strokes, events nevertheless seamlessly pieced together. In this way, while absorbed by the dialogue in which, from the beginning, we see the conflicts for Bridie between she and those who resent her, and by which Dad Joe deftly relates to Bridie the circumstances of her early losses, we can still easily glean the wood for the trees as promised in the synopsis, without ever quite knowing how the ending is going to come, until, with an emotional crescendo, it does.
The power of the story, throughout, comes from a sincerity unadorned.Middle Watch
The facts need no dressing as we witness the emotional distance between the narrator, Bridie, who has lost her real father to be adopted by the good "Dad Joe" as she affectionately calls her foster father, but who also passes into the hands of Joe's resentful and jealous wife, Millie, named with something far affection as "Mean" Millie. Millie is consumed with jealousy because Bridie's love for her adoptive 'Dad', the angst clear from Millie's nickname for the child in her care "Little Miss Nobody". Bridie's feeling of being unwanted is intensified when Mean Millie's son, Andy, not only bullies Bridie but seems almost to get his mother's approval in doing so.
We have to remember that this is not just domestic discord, for Bridie has early lost both her mother and her father while the world in which she might have found sanctuary is, with the exception of Dad Joe, a cauldron of jealousy, resentment and rejection - "Thank God, you're not mine... I'd be ashamed to claim you," Mean Millie reminds the hapless child. The effect on Bridie is simply - yet quite beautifully - expressed when we view her, alone with Dad Joe after he has returned from sea and they go down to the seashore together.
Of the incessant ebb and flow, Bridie finds the sea "Frightening, majestic, terrible, it never stopped, it was never still, yet looking over its vastness, I felt stillness in my soul. It was a paradox I would never understand." Nor shall I, but at least Bridie enjoyed that stillness and brings it closer to the reader.
Themes universal, and we feel the echo of the author's opening quote from Wordsworth's Ode: Intimations of Immortality, but the treatment bears the stamp of a genuinely individual writer who carries conviction with her sheer sincerity of observation and absence of any false sentiment - the whole making a quiet impact rather than a hollow or deafening ring that might have announced itself, like an unfortunate marriage getting too close to a church bell.
And so the need for a truer sense of identity and bonding, first as a daughter to her surrogate Dad, Joe, and then to her lover, Ryan, who is so often distanced from her as he takes up "his lonely sojourn on a lighthouse far from humanity". Bridie's isolation is gradually built and is the more powerfully made when the lighthouse once again visits upon Bridie's life a deeper and more painful loss.
The narrative is masterfully condensed so that the reader can be propelled forward in time often with a few very judicious brush strokes, events nevertheless seamlessly pieced together. In this way, while absorbed by the dialogue in which, from the beginning, we see the conflicts for Bridie between she and those who resent her, and by which Dad Joe deftly relates to Bridie the circumstances of her early losses, we can still easily glean the wood for the trees as promised in the synopsis, without ever quite knowing how the ending is going to come, until, with an emotional crescendo, it does.
The power of the story, throughout, comes from a sincerity unadorned.Middle Watch
September 6, 2016
'Whenever I saw the sea, I had to go close to it. It lured me with its sounds, the tumbling, rushing waves, the roar of its incessant motion. Frightening, majestic, terrible, it never stopped, it was never still, yet looking out over its vastness, I felt stillness in my soul.' Bridie O'Neill
I just love this story. Told from the first person perspective, narrator and heroine Bridie O'Neill is adopted as a baby after the death of her parents. Unfortunately, Bridie's new family is a dysfunctional and abusive one. Her one 'shining light' and beacon of hope rests in her adopted father, whom she lovingly calls 'Dad Joe'. Once settled on the Cornish coast, it is Cornwall that serves as Bridie's protector while Dad Joe works as a lighthouse keeper.
Before too long she meets and falls in love with Ryan and as her confidence and trust grows, she is haunted by the fear that Joe's wife Millie will come after her forcing her to return to her old abusive childhood. She escapes to London finding work and hoping to escape all her emotional problems. What she doesn't realize and the reader soon discovers is what she has set in motion...she may not be able to stop!
Loretta Proctor has beautifully written a heartwarming family saga where the reader roots for Bridie, Dad Joe and you actually have sympathy for jealous and angry Millie; instead of hating her. This is down to the clever storytelling of Loretta Proctor. What she has done is to write another psychological drama of tragedy and intrigue. Bridie's isolation symbolized in the metaphor of a lighthouse is juxtaposed against a rugged coastline and a plot complete with so much love and beauty that you cannot stop reading! I enjoyed every word of Middle Watch. The characters are interesting and lovable and the story is tragic yet haunting!
The pace picks up once Bridie O'Neill moves to London and Dad Joe works as a lighthouse keeper but I do not want to give everything away. It is important for the reader to understand Bridie's childhood in order to appreciate the rest of her life's upheavals.
I just love this story. Told from the first person perspective, narrator and heroine Bridie O'Neill is adopted as a baby after the death of her parents. Unfortunately, Bridie's new family is a dysfunctional and abusive one. Her one 'shining light' and beacon of hope rests in her adopted father, whom she lovingly calls 'Dad Joe'. Once settled on the Cornish coast, it is Cornwall that serves as Bridie's protector while Dad Joe works as a lighthouse keeper.
Before too long she meets and falls in love with Ryan and as her confidence and trust grows, she is haunted by the fear that Joe's wife Millie will come after her forcing her to return to her old abusive childhood. She escapes to London finding work and hoping to escape all her emotional problems. What she doesn't realize and the reader soon discovers is what she has set in motion...she may not be able to stop!
Loretta Proctor has beautifully written a heartwarming family saga where the reader roots for Bridie, Dad Joe and you actually have sympathy for jealous and angry Millie; instead of hating her. This is down to the clever storytelling of Loretta Proctor. What she has done is to write another psychological drama of tragedy and intrigue. Bridie's isolation symbolized in the metaphor of a lighthouse is juxtaposed against a rugged coastline and a plot complete with so much love and beauty that you cannot stop reading! I enjoyed every word of Middle Watch. The characters are interesting and lovable and the story is tragic yet haunting!
The pace picks up once Bridie O'Neill moves to London and Dad Joe works as a lighthouse keeper but I do not want to give everything away. It is important for the reader to understand Bridie's childhood in order to appreciate the rest of her life's upheavals.
April 28, 2012
"Middle Watch" by Loretta Proctor is a beautifully written family saga with an evocative setting. For me, this novel was a very cosy read and if it hadn’t been past midnight when I started reading, I wouldn’t have been able to put it down. I really enjoyed reading the descriptive passages of the places where the heroine lived. The history of some glorious English lighthouses and their keepers is also expertly woven in. The heroine, the orphaned Bridie O’Neill is drawn to these beacons of light from her earliest years and it is she who will ultimately hook the reader.
The lovely, red-headed Bridie is raised by lighthouse keeper Joe Bosworth and for a time his brutal wife “Mean Millie.” She fantasizes about her birth parents and eventually takes her father's name, but she doesn't find out too much about them. Her early childhood reminded me of Jane Eyre's when Jane was a resented and maltreated child who lived with her aunt.
An almost grown up Bridie loves the community of the light keepers and is quite happy keeping house for Dad Joe, but eventually she wants to find her true self, so she goes to London. In spite of her gentle and generous nature, she overcomes many obstacles in the big city, but there is one impediment she can't quite surmount: her handsome and sometimes too charming foster brother, Jim Bosworth. From the beginning, we see Jim through Bridie's eyes, so it's very difficult to decide if he is good or bad. Whatever, he certainly is obsessed with his “sister” and like a true Heathcliff character, he will do anything to get her.
After she returns home, Bridie is torn between this dark lover and her true love, another man she has also known from childhood. What she does about this adds much depth to an already complex character. The ending may come as a surprise to some, but it was the right ending for me. Read "Middle Watch"—you’ll love it!
The lovely, red-headed Bridie is raised by lighthouse keeper Joe Bosworth and for a time his brutal wife “Mean Millie.” She fantasizes about her birth parents and eventually takes her father's name, but she doesn't find out too much about them. Her early childhood reminded me of Jane Eyre's when Jane was a resented and maltreated child who lived with her aunt.
An almost grown up Bridie loves the community of the light keepers and is quite happy keeping house for Dad Joe, but eventually she wants to find her true self, so she goes to London. In spite of her gentle and generous nature, she overcomes many obstacles in the big city, but there is one impediment she can't quite surmount: her handsome and sometimes too charming foster brother, Jim Bosworth. From the beginning, we see Jim through Bridie's eyes, so it's very difficult to decide if he is good or bad. Whatever, he certainly is obsessed with his “sister” and like a true Heathcliff character, he will do anything to get her.
After she returns home, Bridie is torn between this dark lover and her true love, another man she has also known from childhood. What she does about this adds much depth to an already complex character. The ending may come as a surprise to some, but it was the right ending for me. Read "Middle Watch"—you’ll love it!
March 26, 2012
I am always drawn to Loretta Proctor's books by the strength of her characters and the emotions they provoke. Their presence lingers, long after the final page has been devoured. Combined with fast-moving, involving stories in meticulously researched settings, the author, again and again, provides enticing recipes for brilliant novels.
Her latest creation, Middle Watch, is no exception. Its heroine, Bridie O'Neill,wins instant admiration as well as sympathy. Her sad childhood, due to her mother's death and her father's suicide, is overcome by her determination not to be broken by the behaviour of her spiteful foster mother ('Mean Millie'). Yet, even while detesting Millie, we are also made to feel a reluctant tug of compassion as we realise her spite stems from personal unhappiness and discontent.
The peaceful,lonely,fascinating life led by the Lightkeepers and their families, when Bridie lives among them, is an eye-opening source of interest, contrasting cleverly with the bustling noise and activity she later experiences in London. While the relationship between Bridie, the boy she loves, and her foster brother is beautifully portrayed, leading to a breathtaking finale.
Another treasured volume from this talented author to take pride of place on my bookshelf. And on many others, I'm sure. I highly recommend it.
Her latest creation, Middle Watch, is no exception. Its heroine, Bridie O'Neill,wins instant admiration as well as sympathy. Her sad childhood, due to her mother's death and her father's suicide, is overcome by her determination not to be broken by the behaviour of her spiteful foster mother ('Mean Millie'). Yet, even while detesting Millie, we are also made to feel a reluctant tug of compassion as we realise her spite stems from personal unhappiness and discontent.
The peaceful,lonely,fascinating life led by the Lightkeepers and their families, when Bridie lives among them, is an eye-opening source of interest, contrasting cleverly with the bustling noise and activity she later experiences in London. While the relationship between Bridie, the boy she loves, and her foster brother is beautifully portrayed, leading to a breathtaking finale.
Another treasured volume from this talented author to take pride of place on my bookshelf. And on many others, I'm sure. I highly recommend it.
August 22, 2012
I thoroughly enjoyed this beautiful story that Loretta Proctor has penned. She has the skill of a highly accomplished author in creating characters that the reader can identify with. I fell in love with Bridie to the extent that I felt I needed to help her avoid some of the issues she found herself dealing with, if only to ease her pain. Similarly, I strongly disliked Millie, who caused Bridie so much misery and led her to try a life away from her and her bullying sons. The most cleverly dealt with part of the novel is the love between Bridie and the taciturn Ryan who was in serious competition with Jim for Bridie's affections. The resolution was as shocking as it was final.
Loretta has carefully researched the backdrop to the story, a succession of postings in criticaly important lighthouses around the coastline, a brilliantly original and refreshing idea. The story unfolds in a succession of locations, including London, that many readers will be familiar with. (I know the Chines in Bournemouth well) And she writes with clarity, simplicity and charm: 'I didn't love Jim and never would. He could never commune with my innermost soul in the way Ryan did without words..or clever ways.'; and 'It's like I'm the only person alive at a time like that, a God watching a universe.'
Well, done, Loretta. I'm looking forward to reading your next one! Highly recommended.
Loretta has carefully researched the backdrop to the story, a succession of postings in criticaly important lighthouses around the coastline, a brilliantly original and refreshing idea. The story unfolds in a succession of locations, including London, that many readers will be familiar with. (I know the Chines in Bournemouth well) And she writes with clarity, simplicity and charm: 'I didn't love Jim and never would. He could never commune with my innermost soul in the way Ryan did without words..or clever ways.'; and 'It's like I'm the only person alive at a time like that, a God watching a universe.'
Well, done, Loretta. I'm looking forward to reading your next one! Highly recommended.
November 6, 2013
When Bridie is orphaned, she is sent to live with her father’s best friend and his wife. Although her foster father is a kind loving man, but is often away from home for work. So Bridie is often left alone with her cruel and abusive foster mother and her two sons. For Bridie, there is no escape and she lives for the day when she can leave. When her foster father learns of Bridie’s abuse, he accepts a job as a lighthouse keeper and moves out of the house, taking Bridie with him. As Bridie happily settles in her new life, she sets out to become her own woman. As she grows to womanhood she is torn by two young men who both love her – Jim, the son of her foster parents, and Ryan, the son of her new foster mother.
In this character driven novel, author Loretta Proctor creates beautifully flawed characters that are easily identifiable with, but that also create a steady tension from start to finish of this wonderful book. Add to that some vivid descriptions of scenery, ever-evolving characters, and a conflict-ridden story line, and you have an excellent historical novel. There is a terrific surprise ending that left me satisfied. This is a fantastic read, one I highly recommend.
In this character driven novel, author Loretta Proctor creates beautifully flawed characters that are easily identifiable with, but that also create a steady tension from start to finish of this wonderful book. Add to that some vivid descriptions of scenery, ever-evolving characters, and a conflict-ridden story line, and you have an excellent historical novel. There is a terrific surprise ending that left me satisfied. This is a fantastic read, one I highly recommend.
June 1, 2015
I really enjoyed the book up until the last couple of chapters. I mentally and emotionally checked out after the big controversial point (which was not a surprise or twist at all and shouldn't have been to the protagonist, either).
The book is well written and well-edited (except for a few minor typographical errors and the annoying phonetic dialect, which always bugs me), and I really enjoyed the characters and the story up until the end. Then, as I said, I checked out and started skimming.
The "it's not your fault, you're just so hot men can't control themselves" argument just made me roll my eyes and let go of my attachment to the story. While I agree with the protagonist's assessment that Ryan didn't want to change her, I would posit that he was resistant to any change she might undergo--no matter how much she may have wanted it. To me, that's just as poisonous as trying to mold someone into the person you want her to be--you're doing the same thing, just from another angle.
I think the whole thing was well-executed, and I enjoyed it most of the way through, but I personally didn't like the way things ended up.
The book is well written and well-edited (except for a few minor typographical errors and the annoying phonetic dialect, which always bugs me), and I really enjoyed the characters and the story up until the end. Then, as I said, I checked out and started skimming.
The "it's not your fault, you're just so hot men can't control themselves" argument just made me roll my eyes and let go of my attachment to the story. While I agree with the protagonist's assessment that Ryan didn't want to change her, I would posit that he was resistant to any change she might undergo--no matter how much she may have wanted it. To me, that's just as poisonous as trying to mold someone into the person you want her to be--you're doing the same thing, just from another angle.
I think the whole thing was well-executed, and I enjoyed it most of the way through, but I personally didn't like the way things ended up.
December 15, 2013
Another extremely well-crafted novel from this delightful author. Middle Watch captures the idiom and language of the times in delicious narrative In Bridie O'Neill the novel has a central character of depth and warmth, whose early troubled life shapes her future and ultimately results in the triangle which she is powerless to resolve.
A gentle and well-plotted story from a writer with a rare talent for creating tangible atmosphere and intelligent, strong prose.
November 22, 2016
There's a deceptive simplicity and an undertone of menace to this book. It was well outside my reading genre, but I enjoyed the ability to read it swiftly and take in the detail of the characters and their interactions. I really got a feeling for Portdown Road. I have lived in similar places in my younger years in London, perhaps not in the role of some of its residents.
September 9, 2012
Good Reads Win: This book is very well written. It has a family setting. The story is well thought out and I feel planned out. It doesn't just go on and on with random things. I think this book was very sweet and cute. I hope to see and read more of this wonderful author. Thanks for the book!
October 28, 2013
Almost thought this was a Young Adult novel. A nice tame story, I lost patience with the main character's eternal indecision about her love interests. But maybe that was the point and I am NOT a romantic
September 16, 2020
I received this book through the First Reads giveaway program on Goodreads. Review to follow.
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