Published By: Faber
Pages: 272
Released On: 10/09/2026
I knew as I made my way home that there was no home. All the old things. . . were gone forever.
Against a rapidly shifting landscape, Tennyson Bouguereau – freed man, devoted brother, nascent singer, conflicted soldier and wanted man – journey to find meaning and belonging. From the relative safety of home in Tennessee with his sister Rosalee, he is offered the possibility of a whole new life in Nashville, until a surprising trip to Victorian England changes everything.
*****
Thanks to NetGalley and Faber for the advanced copy of this title in return for an honest review.
I have one of Sebastian’s books – Old God’s Time – but I haven’t read it yet so this was my first book of his.
This was one of my most anticipated reads of the year but it left me feeling a bit flat.
I can’t really say whether I liked it or not. It’s well written, very evocative and atmospheric, well researched. And yet, whilst I was reading it, I kept thinking “Am I enjoying this or am I really not?”
It’s set just after the American Civil War which I admit is not a period I know much, or anything, about so this was quite eye opening.
I do believe this is set in the same world as his books Days Without End and A Thousand Moons, with familiar characters. Now, I haven’t read either of them so I cannot say whether I missed anything important, but I didn’t feel like I was missing anything.
It is a complex book with a range of difficult topics and ideas and is quite hard to read at times, although I do appreciate how honest and raw he’s been in this book.
It’s a stream of consciousness really, for the most part. I don’t mind first-person narratives but if I had to choose, I wouldn’t be choosing them. And so I kept wondering who he was meant to be talking to, if the reader was meant to be working something out or not.
There’s no denying the beauty in his writing prose, characters, setting – everything on the technical aspect of writing is wonderful and I’d say akin to Maggie O’Farrell (who I believe is one of the best at doing so).
There isn’t much going on. This isn’t necessarily a negative as long as there’s other things to bolster the plot, and whilst I didn’t love it, I did enjoy the world he had created. But apart from saying “it’s about a man around the Civil War”, I couldn’t really tell you in detail about it. And it also went too fast. Whatever was happening, it was told so fast that an entire battle could be written in just one sentence and you don’t know if you’re coming or going and there’s just not enough time to get invested in the characters or the story.
This wasn’t as good as I hoped it would be – although I cannot ignore his skill at writing prose and creating a sense of space and atmosphere – but I am still interested to read some of his others.
Books By Your Bedside 