Dark is the Morning (2026)

Dark is the Morning takes place in Abruzzo, Italy, predominantly in the early 2000s. At its centre is a relationship between Gino, who after a mis-spent youth is trying to get his life back on track, and Franca, who told him when they were children that they would one day marry. The novel is set up as a romance, in which two outsiders look set to make amends for their failure to get it together during some initial adventures as teenagers. However, we know from the start that things are unlikely to be as simple as that, via means of words that conclude its introductory chapter, narrated by the Englishman Harry who (from the present day) refers ominously to ‘those events’ that took place in the early 2000s.