Dark Is the Morning: A Novel

A man’s inner demons threaten his chance at love with a childhood friend in this poignant, propulsive novel set against the beauty of modern Italy.

Dark is the morning that passes
without the light of your eyes
—Cesare Pavese

As a 9-year-old schoolgirl, Franca tells Gino that she will marry him one day, and against all the odds her prophecy comes true. Set in a mountain village in Abruzzo in the early 2000s, Dark Is the Morning is the story of two ordinary young people who fall in love and seem destined for a life of happiness. But there is something in Franca’s past that haunts Gino. His curiosity gradually turns into obsession—an obsession that will have heartbreaking consequences.

Dark Is the Morning has a timeless, eternal quality, like a fable or a fairy-tale. In a world where women’s strength often holds communities together, it speaks to male fragility and to the insidious and corrosive power of jealousy. Shifting between tenderness and paranoia, between beauty and tragedy, this is an extraordinary novel from one of the UK’s most unpredictable and celebrated writers.