The Small Hours follows Michael Virtue, a psychologist whose life starts to unravel after the death of his closest friend and the slow collapse of his marriage. While he tries to keep himself afloat, he becomes drawn back into the long unresolved mystery of his uncle Robert, who vanished during the Spanish Civil War. The story moves between letters from the 1930s, Michael’s midlife turmoil in the late 1980s, and the old scars still lingering in Andalusian towns. The more he digs, the more he learns that war does not end when the guns go quiet. It stays in the people who survived it and in the families who never got answers.

The writing feels calm on the surface, but underneath it hums with grief and regret. I kept noticing how the author lets moments stretch out. A small gesture becomes heavy, and a stray memory turns sharp. It feels real. Michael is not a tidy hero. He stumbles. He doubts himself. He drinks too much. He tries to fix things he does not know how to fix. I found myself both frustrated with him and rooting for him. The letters from Robert were my favorite part. They carry this sweet mix of hope, fear, and youthful bravado. They made me ache because I already knew what Michael didn’t. The tone of the book is warm. It held me in a quiet sadness that felt honest rather than forced.

There were places where the story surprised me. Some characters walk in with very jagged edges. Delia, especially, knocked me off balance. She is blunt and unpredictable and sometimes a little wild, and she shakes Michael awake even when he doesn’t want to be awake. The Spanish sections were the most vivid. The villages feel sun-bleached and haunted. Every old stone seems to carry a memory. I could almost smell the dust and the sea air fighting each other. The pacing sometimes meanders, but I didn’t mind. It felt like wandering through someone’s emotional attic, bumping into things they forgot they had stored away. The author lets sorrow echo, and for me, that made the book feel relatable.

By the time I reached the end, I felt like I had sat with a friend who finally said something they had needed to say for twenty years. This book would be perfect for readers who like stories about family secrets, grief that does not behave, and the strange ways the past keeps tugging at the present. It is also a good fit for anyone who likes slow-burning emotional journeys and stories that blend personal history with real historical wounds.

Pages: 463 | ASIN : B0FH7CLCDH