Bookmarked Places

“An Instance of the Fingerpost” is a historical novel set in seventeenth-century Oxford, centred on the poisoning of a theologian. A young servant, Sarah Blundy, is hanged for the crime, but the novel questions whether she was truly guilty. The events are recounted years later by four narrators whose accounts contradict one another.

“Ingenious Pain” is a historical novel set in 18th-century England and Russia. It follows the extraordinary life of James Dyer, an Englishman born without the ability to feel physical pain. After a difficult childhood, and a serious of adventures involving charlatans, scientists, and so-called “freaks”, he becomes a skilled – yet emotionally detached – surgeon in Bath, in the south of England. His story eventually leads him to the cold and wintry St Petersburg in Russia.

“Reading in the Dark” tells the story of a young boy growing up in a poor Catholic neighbourhood of Derry, Northern Ireland, during the 1950s. He becomes increasingly preoccupied with a long-buried family mystery: the disappearance of his uncle Eddie in the 1920s. Eddie is believed to have been a police informer, executed as a traitor by the IRA. This tragic event casts a long shadow over the family, bringing grief, shame, and a culture of silence. Determined to uncover the truth, the boy sets out to unravel the secrets his family would rather keep hidden.