Tag: Read

#WWWWednesday – 29th April 2026

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Hosted by Taking on a World of Words, this meme is all about the three Ws:

  • What are you currently reading?
  • What did you recently finish reading?
  • What do you think you’ll read next?

Why not join in too?  Leave a comment with your link at Taking on a World of Words and then go blog hopping!

What I’m Currently Reading

Flashlight by Susan Choi (Vintage)

A moment is all it takes to shatter a family. The echoes last a lifetime…

One evening, ten-year-old Louisa and her father, Serk, take a walk out on the breakwater. They are spending the summer in a coastal Japanese town. Hours later, Louisa wakes on the beach, soaked to the skin. Her father is missing: presumably drowned.

This sudden event shatters their small family. As Louisa and her American mother return to the US, Serk’s disappearance reverberates across time and space, and the mystery of what really happened that night slowly unravels.

Where the Shadows End by Louisa Bello (eARC, epoque press)

Sam, a 45-year-old Londoner of dual heritage, has lived his life accompanied by voices no one else can hear. Chief among them is the taunting echo of a childhood bully who refuses to let Sam forget the guilt he carries over his mother’s death.

When his elusive, dream-like girlfriend, known only as Boat Woman, disappears without warning, Sam’s fragile world begins to unravel, and he becomes convinced that only his death can protect those he loves.

As the past and present collide in Sam’s fractured mind, he is drawn into a labyrinth of memory and revelation that challenges everything he thought he knew. But the voices that haunt him may yet become his guides, if he can only find the courage to listen.

What I’ve Just Read

Dark is the Morning by Rupert Thomson (Apollo)

Paper Sisters by Rachel Canwell (Northodox Press)

Lincolnshire, 1914. As the First World War approaches, three women are living, trapped between the unforgiving marsh, the wide, relentless river, and the isolation of the fen.

Their lives are held fast by profound grief, haunted by the spectres of the past. Trapped by the looming presence and eerie stillness of a hospital that has never admitted a single patient.

Eleanor longs to escape. To make a life with the man she loves, leaving her sister, and all her ghosts behind. Clara’s marriage is crumbling and violent and she yearns for peace and security for both herself and her innocent children. Meanwhile, Lily, a formidable force of will, stands resolute against the relentless tide of change. She will stop at nothing, no matter the devastating cost, to ensure that life, and her family, remain frozen in an unyielding embrace of the past. (Review to follow)

What I’ll Be Reading Next

Relative Failures: The Lives of Willie Wilde, Mabel Beardsley and Howard Sturgis by Matthew Sturgis (Apollo)

History remembers the greats – but what about those who lived alongside them?

In the cultural ferment of late nineteenth-century London, three fascinating but often overlooked figures navigated the world in the shadow of their celebrated brothers. Willie Wilde, the hapless yet charming older sibling of Oscar, never quite matched his brother’s literary genius. Mabel Beardsley, the striking and ambitious sister of Aubrey, played a crucial role in his artistic ascent before forging her own path on the stage. And Howard Sturgis, a minor novelist with a sharp wit, watched as his brother Julian achieved the success he himself never quite grasped.

Moving through bohemian clubland, West End theatres, literary salons, and the pages of The Yellow Book, these siblings were more than just footnotes to history. Their lives – filled with ambition, scandal, devotion, and missteps – offer a fresh perspective on the glittering world of the 1890s.

Drawing on family history, sharp storytelling, and original research, Matthew Sturgis reveals the vibrant, overlooked figures who shaped their era. For lovers of literary and cultural history, it is an invitation to explore the road less travelled – a sidelight that, as Mabel Beardsley knew well, can sometimes be the most illuminating.

Book Review – Dark is the Morning by Rupert Thomson @HoZ_Books

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About the Book

Sometimes love isn’t where you belong

In a small town in the Abruzzo region of Italy, Gino, a troubled young man, realises that his childhood sweetheart Franca can give his life the happiness and stability he needs. They seem made for each other, and move to a remote house in the countryside. Franca soon gives birth to a son so handsome that people come from miles around to see him – but his sheer beauty causes Gino to doubt that he is truly the boy’s father.

Descending into pathological jealousy and resentment towards a married man who had been Franca’s lover, Gino is unable to stop himself imagining the worst, and embarks on a violent path that has catastrophic effects on those around him.

Format: eARC (251 pages) Publisher: Apollo
Publication date: 7th May 2026 Genre: Fiction

Find Dark is the Morning on Goodreads

Preorder/purchase Dark is the Morning from Bookshop.org [Disclosure: If you buy books linked to our site, we may earn a commission from Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookshops]

My Review

I’ve read two previous books by Rupert Thomson both very different, demonstrating his versatility. Secrecy was a historical mystery set in 17th century Florence and How to Make a Bomb about a man in the grip of a malaise created by the modern world. In Dark is the Morning the author takes us inside the head of Gino; it is indeed a dark place.

Gino seems to have everything. He’s recovered from a period confined to a psychiatric hospital as a result of an act of violence he carried out, he’s living a mostly drug free life, he has a good job, and has been reunited with his childhood sweetheart, Franca. Their love for each other has been rekindled, they have found the perfect house in a beautiful location and Franca has given birth to their son, Elio.

But Gino is a man who seems bent on self-destruction, perpetually going over in his mind his father’s criticisms of his inadequacy and shortcomings. Gino is unable to rid himself of the idea that he cannot possibly be the father of a baby as astoundingly beautiful as Elio, examining his own features in the mirror and finding no similarity. ‘I was looking for my son’s face in my own, and I could find no trace of it. It wasn’t there.’ Unable – or unwilling through an innate paranoia – to accept Franca’s assurances that she has not been unfaithful, he begins to stalk the man he believes to be Elio’s father, a man with his own reputation for violence. Increasingly afflicted by disturbing dreams and unable to control his feelings of jealousy, Gino commits a devastating act from which there is no going back.

There is a pervasive sense of unease throughout the book, manifested by things such as a mysterious and unexplained episode in the life of the house’s previous owner. On the other hand, there are wonderful descriptions of the landscape of Abruzzo, Italian food and wine. Dark is the Morning is a slow burn of a novel but one which gradually builds to a crescendo. It’s dark but also sad because you’re left with a lingering sense of what could have been for Gino, Franca and Elio.

I received a review copy courtesy of Apollo via NetGalley.

In three words: Dark, intense, compelling
Try something similar: Belladonna by Anbara Salam

About the Author

Rupert Thomson is the author of more than a dozen acclaimed novels, including Barcelona Dreaming, Never Anyone But You, Katherine Carlyle, Secrecy, The Insult, which was shortlisted for the Guardian Fiction Prize and selected by David Bowie as one of his 100 Must-Read Books of All Time, The Book of Revelation, which was made into a feature film by Ana Kokkinos, and Death of a Murderer, which was shortlisted for the Costa Novel of the Year Award. His memoir, This Party’s Got to Stop, was named Writers’ Guild Non-Fiction Book of the Year. He lives in London. (Photo: Amazon author page)

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