Dark Is the Morning

A Novel

Ebook
On sale Jun 23, 2026 | 272 Pages | 9781635422290

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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.
© Robin Farquhar-Thomson
Rupert Thomson is the author of more than a dozen acclaimed novels, including Katherine Carlyle; Secrecy; The Insult, which was short-listed 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 short-listed 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. View titles by Rupert Thomson

About

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.

Author

© Robin Farquhar-Thomson
Rupert Thomson is the author of more than a dozen acclaimed novels, including Katherine Carlyle; Secrecy; The Insult, which was short-listed 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 short-listed 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. View titles by Rupert Thomson

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