Okay, I'll be honest. I picked this one up thinking I knew exactly what I was getting into. Another WWII novel. I'd read plenty. I thought I had it figured out. I did not have it figured out. The Ragged Edge of Night by Olivia Hawker is quietly devastating in the best possible way. Set in a small German town from 1942 to 1945, it follows Anton... a friar who loses his religious order when the Nazis shut it down. With everything crumbling around him, he answers a widow's newspaper ad. Elisabeth needs security for her children. He needs purpose. Their marriage starts as a transaction… and becomes something neither of them planned on. The writing? Oh my goodness. You can feel the cold of a German winter. The heaviness sitting over every meal, every conversation. And underneath it, the fragile warmth of a home where love is trying, carefully, to take root. What got me most was Anton's interior life. He's not a soldier. Not a hero in the conventional sense. He's a man haunted by guilt, wrestling with his faith, doing small faithful things in the dark. When a local priest pulls him into carrying resistance messages, he doesn't say yes for money or glory. He says yes because it feels like a calling. That distinction matters. It's the whole book, really. By the end, I saw him clearly as a quiet man, full of doubt, who chose hope anyway. And used that hope to fuel his courage, one small act at a time. And then I found out it's a true story. Olivia Hawker wrote about her husband's grandfather. The story had been told at family gatherings for many years. In her case, she heard it at a Thanksgiving dinner. "Opa and the bells," they called it. When the family learned she was a writer who specialized in historical fiction, they said: write it. She did her research. Found most of it was true. Changed very little. Her Author's Notes at the back of the book lay it all out — what was real, what she kept, and why. Actually, there's so much there I hope she writes about him again!

Some good news for your Monday. "The decline [of physical bookstores] actually ended years ago, and the latest numbers from the American Booksellers Association show independent stores expanding at a pace not seen this century." https://www.kpbs.org/news/arts-culture/2026/05/28/independent-bookstores-are-multiplying-find-booksellers-in-your-community

That name was the clear winner from our poll. Thank you all for voting and for offering your name suggestions. I appreciate it 🧡

Vote for your favourite name for our cat mascot! 🐈‍⬛ Polls in here are very basic. There can be only 10 options and you can vote for only one option. So, vote for your first choice. If you have a strong second choice, mention it in the comments. I'll give 2 points to the names voted in the poll and 1 point to names in the comments. If there's a tie, I'll cast the deciding vote. I'll announce the winner tomorrow (26th May). If you want to see the explanations behind the names, see this post: What should we name our cat mascot?

My kids named our two fluffy black cats Squid (because he's black like ink) and Dove (because of the little cooing sound she made when she was a kitten; she now sounds more like a squawking vulture 😂). What do you think is a good name for our Historical Fiction Club cat? [Edited to add: I'll create a poll on Monday 25th so we can decide.]