Set on two fictional islands in Downeast Maine, Island of First Light is a novel about the continuous struggle to rise above the troubles, even horrors, surrounding us and the long road through guilt and shame back to joy and peace. 

My intention was to view this drama of the human spirit through the prisms of four very different personalities. Thus I ended up with several interweaving stories centered around these four major characters: a woman disoriented by a disintegrating marriage and propelled by a profound sense of terror; a retired fisherman who remains deeply troubled by personal loss and by the things he witnessed during World War II; a Passamaquoddy Indian woman who suffers in an abusive relationship and turns to her Native American heritage for solace; and the fourth character, presented through a journal he kept, a Jesuit priest who came to the aid of the Acadians (my ancestors) when they were expelled from their homes in Nova Scotia. The journal reveals secrets that condemn the ancestors of the contemporary residents of the island.

What I wanted to do with all the relationships in the intertwined stories is speak to the ways modern society has forced us to redefine the notion of family from the traditional one, centered around the nuclear family, to a broader notion of a community made necessary in the face of overwhelming events. In short, I wanted to explore how people reach out to others when confronted with the hard truths of life.

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