Cole Moreton talks to Angela Tilby about his debut novel The Light Keeper

Cole Moreton is a writer and broadcaster (and a former reporter and news editor of the Church Times). He has been named Interviewer of the Year for his work with the Mail on Sunday and his Radio 4 series The Boy Who Gave His Heart Away won Audio Moment of the Year, (a book of the same name was published in 2017. He lives near Beachy Head, the setting for his critically acclaimed debut novel The Light Keeper. In a review of the book published in the Church Times, Mark Oakley wrote: “Its themes are piercingly unapologetic — childlessness, grief, suicide, loss, the fragility of relationships, and bereavement’s erratic leadership of our emotions and, often, of life itself. Carefully paced but intense, detached but compelling, the movement of the novel is as enticing and treacherous as the sea and the coastland cliffs it beautifully evokes.” At the Church Times Festival of Faith and Literature last month, Cole Moreton spoke to Angela Tilby about the themes of the book and read passages from it. You can listen to the fascinating conversation on this week’s podcast. The Light Keeper is available to buy from the Church House Bookshop. It is out in paperback in May. Get the Church Times delivered for 10 weeks for just £10: www.churchtimes.co.uk/10-weeks