In the Dark | Fiction - www.zzdbook.com

In the Dark

Aug 6, 2025 8:53 PM

Author:Deborah Moggach

In the Dark

From the bestselling author of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

1916. Pretty Eithne Clay runs a ramshackle South London boarding house with the help of her teenage son, Ralph, and their maid, Winnie. Struggling to keep herself, her lodgers, and her son going as every day life vanishes in the face of war, Eithne’s world is transformed by the arrival of Mr Turk, the virile, carnal, carnivorous local butcher who falls passionately in love with her. As the house bursts to life with the electricity – metaphorical and real – he brings, dark secrets come to light…

Reviews

From the first perfect sentence this novel is a gem. Its pared sentences and vocabulary really capture the time

—— Evening Standard

The Moggacch miracle continues- here's another vivid, gripping yarn from the author of Tulip Fever... with a plot as twisty as a mountain road

—— The Times

This wartime novel of ordinary Londoners is atmospheric and buzzing with electricity... a spirited portrait of lives thrown into turmoil by the Great War

—— Daily Express

Like the recent novels by Ian McEwan and Sarah Waters, In the Dark successfully modernises the past. By focusing on life's murkier undercurrents... the characters come to seem appealingly familiar

—— Sophia Harrison , Sunday Times

A thoughtful diligent writer

—— Sunday Telegraph

Deborah Moggach's affection for her compex, damaged characters shines through the dark setting in this tender, funny and unsettling book

—— The Gloss

The details of life in an Edwardian household are researched to perfection

—— Scotland on Sunday

The great joy of this tender little novel is Deborah Moggach's sensory imagination

—— Guardian

The characterisation is superb, Moggach has brilliantly resurrected a world of genteel penury and intense, furtive sex, and the book exudes quiet excellence

—— Mail on Sunday

[A] smartly-written novel...the writing remains fresh and persuasive

—— Hepzibah Anderson , Observer

Neill bucks the chick-lit trend with prose that's clever and endearing, and frazzled parents will love the way she nails the sticky, hair-pulling mania of domestic life

—— Washington Post

A deftly executed domestic comedy

—— Boston Globe

Hilarious . . . Plays with the chaos and comedy of 30-something metropolitan maternity and brings it to an unexpectedly moving conclusion

—— Anna Wintour , Vogue

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