DreamWorks is in talks to pick up the movie rights to The Light Between Oceans, the debut novel by M.L. Stedman, The Hollywood Reporter said.

Heyday Films' David Heyman, who produced the Harry Potter series, is producing with the company’s Jeffrey Clifford.

The book, published July 31 by Scribner to stellar reviews, is set on an island off the coast of Western Australia after World War I. A lighthouse keeper and his wife find a 2-month-old girl and a dead body in a rowboat and decide to raise the baby as their own. But what seems like a blessing soon turns tragic, as morality and love are tested.

Rosie Alison, who brought the book to Heyday, will executive produce.

"I was deeply affected by M.L. Stedman's powerful and primal story of human choices and their consequences,” Heyman said in a statement. “It's a novel which tackles grand emotions, but everything is rooted within an intimate yet universal story of marital and parental love.”

Nick Marston of Curtis Brown with Sue Armstrong of Conville and Walsh are repping Stedman in the dealmaking.