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Bright Spark
Bright Spark is historical/literary fiction.
It's
While trapped in the stuffy confines of bourgeois Thorny Grove, Simone finds her life is filled with strangers. She really does not know anyone - not her new husband, not her only 'friend', and least of all herself.
It is not long, however, before her husband's exploits lead her to the Queen's Head Public House and Hostelry, and a discovery of the controversial trade being plied there. While wearing her detective's cap and investigating his underhand conduct, she finds two improbable comrades that give her the strength to make a daring escape from the clutches of convention.
Her old life upended, Simone finds herself drawn to the intrigues of political action. Soon she finds a new sense of self while navigating scandal, judgment, and her own deepest fears.
With another unconventional take on the interwar period, Bright Spark has hints of the detective story blended with period piece motifs. It delivers eccentric characters and offbeat scenarios as it advances towards a surprisingly upbeat closing.
It's
While trapped in the stuffy confines of bourgeois Thorny Grove, Simone finds her life is filled with strangers. She really does not know anyone - not her new husband, not her only 'friend', and least of all herself.
It is not long, however, before her husband's exploits lead her to the Queen's Head Public House and Hostelry, and a discovery of the controversial trade being plied there. While wearing her detective's cap and investigating his underhand conduct, she finds two improbable comrades that give her the strength to make a daring escape from the clutches of convention.
Her old life upended, Simone finds herself drawn to the intrigues of political action. Soon she finds a new sense of self while navigating scandal, judgment, and her own deepest fears.
With another unconventional take on the interwar period, Bright Spark has hints of the detective story blended with period piece motifs. It delivers eccentric characters and offbeat scenarios as it advances towards a surprisingly upbeat closing.
176 pages, Kindle Edition
Published December 31, 2025
1 person want to read
About the author
Alec S. Ireson
2 books5 followersAlec S. Ireson is a new author who hails from Penzance, Cornwall in the United Kingdom. During the late nineties he studied film, media, and communications at Goldmiths in London. He has since worked as a youth arts worker.
Alec writes genre-defying literary fiction that immerses his reader.
His debut novel, Greenthorne, was published in the summer of 2025.
A brief blurb:
‘While their bones rot in Greenthorne’s graveyard, the ghosts of Oliver’s past are but a few of the adversaries he encounters amidst the shambles of his cheerless and troubled routine. Can Oliver prevail nonetheless?’
Meanwhile, Alec’s second novel, Uncle Emile, is underway. It is a meditation on love, life, art, and poetry!
His current film project, a short entitled Drum Heart, is on the international festival circuit.
Alec enjoys living in lively East London with his much-cherished cat, Valentina.
Alec loves hearing from readers, so don’t hesitate to get in touch!
Alec writes genre-defying literary fiction that immerses his reader.
His debut novel, Greenthorne, was published in the summer of 2025.
A brief blurb:
‘While their bones rot in Greenthorne’s graveyard, the ghosts of Oliver’s past are but a few of the adversaries he encounters amidst the shambles of his cheerless and troubled routine. Can Oliver prevail nonetheless?’
Meanwhile, Alec’s second novel, Uncle Emile, is underway. It is a meditation on love, life, art, and poetry!
His current film project, a short entitled Drum Heart, is on the international festival circuit.
Alec enjoys living in lively East London with his much-cherished cat, Valentina.
Alec loves hearing from readers, so don’t hesitate to get in touch!
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
January 8, 2026
“But without warning, she had an overwhelming desire to craft her own future and embrace exciting new perspectives in the process – the perspectives of socialism, mainly, which, like a new lover, still kissed her full-mouthed.”
I had a conversation with a friend, not too long ago, about what makes a prequel a ‘good book’. I think it’s easy to give in to temptation – to use our prequels and novellas as relatively easy writes. After all, we are, by that point, intimately familiar with our worlds and all the characters therein. We could simply tell readers the origin stories that already exist in our heads, layering up the foundations beneath the house we’ve already built and plastering over a few cracks in the walls that we didn’t notice until now. There’s nothing stopping us from doing that, I guess. But shouldn’t we look at these stories as what they could become: not just bracing for a (hopefully) already sound structure, but a chance to build a new room for readers to explore?
This new room could have cobwebs strung across the crown moulding and cigarette burns on the bedspread. It could have dated, floral curtains and sweet-smelling stains on the carpet from where a perfume bottle once tipped. It could be filled with moth-nibbled books about socialism, the pages dog-eared after so many eager readings. It could be anything: a self-contained story with its own characters and themes and historical significance, and yet still exist as part of the house you so lovingly built. Look— there is the letter from a man we’ve already met and grown to despise. And there, out the window— a boy whose hardships, we know, are only a few ice cream sundaes away.
This is the room that Alec Ireson built. A room from which we can see glimpses into Greenthorn, but which is so much more than that one-way window.
Bright Spark delves into Simone Cranford’s life before she and Oliver become properly acquainted, when she was a young woman caged in by her bourgeois lifestyle and utter drip of a husband. With no job, no autonomy and a growing sense of unease as to her husband’s affairs, it’s little wonder Simone begins to question her purpose. But when she hears a news report about socialist protests in London – standing up for workers just like those she feared were suffering under Mr Cranford’s employ – she is compelled to find out more.
Simone’s journey from that point is one of self-discovery, but also an exploration of ideas that reach far beyond her big house and the trappings of middle class living. Ireson cleverly draws on the similarities between his main character’s marital oppression and sexual repression, and the real life struggle for workers’ rights in the 1920s. All lack agency. All are subject to abuse – at the hands of the same villain, in Bright Spark’s case. And as Simone’s understanding of socialism grows so too does her desire for personal change.
I could keep going this way and end up relaying the entire story to you, so interesting are the intricacies, but I’d be doing you and the author a disservice. It is so well done. Ireson asks sensitive questions and draws thought-provoking comparisons. He tenderly addresses sexual awakenings and parallels socialism and sex work. And all the while there is this sense of slowly-mounting anticipation, for we know what happens next, even if not entirely how it happens.
And although I did miss the floral language and vivid descriptions that brought Greenthorne to life, I understand that Simone is not Oliver. Their similarities do not make them the same. Ultimately, what Bright Spark might have lost in minimising its symbolism and introspection, Ireson more than made up for with his nuanced storytelling.
At the end of the day, both of Ireson’s books left me feeling better for having read them. There’s a heartiness to them: a warmth that yet defies the term ‘cozy’ because cozy implies ‘safe’ and I cannot say that either Bright Spark or Greenthorne fall into that category. There is too much heartache on the horizon. Too much history taking place in the corners of the page. But the heartiness comes from the Ireson’s characters striving for better things, in spite of it all. Oliver’s eventual self-acceptance. Simone’s thirst for new perspectives, and the way she talked about the town of Greenthorne, seeing past the factories and smog to the people working and living there… It was just the little slice of hope I needed.
I had a conversation with a friend, not too long ago, about what makes a prequel a ‘good book’. I think it’s easy to give in to temptation – to use our prequels and novellas as relatively easy writes. After all, we are, by that point, intimately familiar with our worlds and all the characters therein. We could simply tell readers the origin stories that already exist in our heads, layering up the foundations beneath the house we’ve already built and plastering over a few cracks in the walls that we didn’t notice until now. There’s nothing stopping us from doing that, I guess. But shouldn’t we look at these stories as what they could become: not just bracing for a (hopefully) already sound structure, but a chance to build a new room for readers to explore?
This new room could have cobwebs strung across the crown moulding and cigarette burns on the bedspread. It could have dated, floral curtains and sweet-smelling stains on the carpet from where a perfume bottle once tipped. It could be filled with moth-nibbled books about socialism, the pages dog-eared after so many eager readings. It could be anything: a self-contained story with its own characters and themes and historical significance, and yet still exist as part of the house you so lovingly built. Look— there is the letter from a man we’ve already met and grown to despise. And there, out the window— a boy whose hardships, we know, are only a few ice cream sundaes away.
This is the room that Alec Ireson built. A room from which we can see glimpses into Greenthorn, but which is so much more than that one-way window.
Bright Spark delves into Simone Cranford’s life before she and Oliver become properly acquainted, when she was a young woman caged in by her bourgeois lifestyle and utter drip of a husband. With no job, no autonomy and a growing sense of unease as to her husband’s affairs, it’s little wonder Simone begins to question her purpose. But when she hears a news report about socialist protests in London – standing up for workers just like those she feared were suffering under Mr Cranford’s employ – she is compelled to find out more.
Simone’s journey from that point is one of self-discovery, but also an exploration of ideas that reach far beyond her big house and the trappings of middle class living. Ireson cleverly draws on the similarities between his main character’s marital oppression and sexual repression, and the real life struggle for workers’ rights in the 1920s. All lack agency. All are subject to abuse – at the hands of the same villain, in Bright Spark’s case. And as Simone’s understanding of socialism grows so too does her desire for personal change.
I could keep going this way and end up relaying the entire story to you, so interesting are the intricacies, but I’d be doing you and the author a disservice. It is so well done. Ireson asks sensitive questions and draws thought-provoking comparisons. He tenderly addresses sexual awakenings and parallels socialism and sex work. And all the while there is this sense of slowly-mounting anticipation, for we know what happens next, even if not entirely how it happens.
And although I did miss the floral language and vivid descriptions that brought Greenthorne to life, I understand that Simone is not Oliver. Their similarities do not make them the same. Ultimately, what Bright Spark might have lost in minimising its symbolism and introspection, Ireson more than made up for with his nuanced storytelling.
At the end of the day, both of Ireson’s books left me feeling better for having read them. There’s a heartiness to them: a warmth that yet defies the term ‘cozy’ because cozy implies ‘safe’ and I cannot say that either Bright Spark or Greenthorne fall into that category. There is too much heartache on the horizon. Too much history taking place in the corners of the page. But the heartiness comes from the Ireson’s characters striving for better things, in spite of it all. Oliver’s eventual self-acceptance. Simone’s thirst for new perspectives, and the way she talked about the town of Greenthorne, seeing past the factories and smog to the people working and living there… It was just the little slice of hope I needed.
February 1, 2026
Wonderfully written....
Another glimpse into the Greenthorne saga. Written with charm, empathy, and skill. A titillating backstory of which all of Greenthorne will, I hope, be revealed with each additional story.
Another glimpse into the Greenthorne saga. Written with charm, empathy, and skill. A titillating backstory of which all of Greenthorne will, I hope, be revealed with each additional story.
February 8, 2026
Bright Spark took me completely by surprise. Because it’s the prequal to Greenthorne, which I’ve also read and loved, I expected another read where one saunters rather than runs through the story, where the pace is slow and speculative, unfolding one inch at a time, the way Greenthorne did. The temptation to blast through this book was very real, because Simone, the main character, is such a delightful treat. Here is a woman with so much grit and gumption, her personality all but shines through every single page. I loved sharing her journey to find those wings that circumstances have clipped before she even had a chance to properly fly. Breaking out of a cage is never easy, even if it is of the gilded variety. It’s a great book, exceedingly well-written. As another reviewer stated, it’s one of those books that make you feel better for having read it. Either because of the quality of the writing, or because it’s filled with so much heart.
January 10, 2026
Bright Spark is technically a prequel to 'Greenthorne' (which I have also read), as it is the backstory of one of the characters. However, it also works perfectly well as a standalone story. The setting and many of the characters are the same as in 'Greenthorne', but the action takes place a few years earlier, and Simone’s story is entirely her own.
Simone is a young, newly-married Frenchwoman living in a country that is quite foreign to her at first. Greenthorne, on the other hand, is an industrial town somewhere in the north of England, where the divide between rich and poor is all too noticeable. At the beginning of the book, Simone is naïve and easily pushed around by her unloving husband, but with the help of some new-found and particularly colourful friends, she gradually finds her own voice and takes her life into her own hands, rapidly morphing into a delicious mixture of French elegance and refinement and northern English grit and plain talking.
What really makes this book is Simone herself. Earlier this week, at my local bookclub, we were talking about character arcs, and Simone would be a great example of how to do this well. The way her character develops throughout the novel, as a result of circumstances and the influence of other characters, is wholly believable and relatable, but also exciting. Her journey from timid young bride to unconventional, sassy heroine is devoid of cliché and far from predictable, making it an entertaining read, and if I were to meet her in real life, I would definitely want to be her friend. Christmas and New Year were lovely but hectic in our house this year, and my little moments spent with Simone provided an ideal escape from the chaos from time to time.
The title of the book is clever, too. To explain it here would risk spoiling its subtlety, but suffice it to say that the story is electrifying in more ways than one.
Simone is a young, newly-married Frenchwoman living in a country that is quite foreign to her at first. Greenthorne, on the other hand, is an industrial town somewhere in the north of England, where the divide between rich and poor is all too noticeable. At the beginning of the book, Simone is naïve and easily pushed around by her unloving husband, but with the help of some new-found and particularly colourful friends, she gradually finds her own voice and takes her life into her own hands, rapidly morphing into a delicious mixture of French elegance and refinement and northern English grit and plain talking.
What really makes this book is Simone herself. Earlier this week, at my local bookclub, we were talking about character arcs, and Simone would be a great example of how to do this well. The way her character develops throughout the novel, as a result of circumstances and the influence of other characters, is wholly believable and relatable, but also exciting. Her journey from timid young bride to unconventional, sassy heroine is devoid of cliché and far from predictable, making it an entertaining read, and if I were to meet her in real life, I would definitely want to be her friend. Christmas and New Year were lovely but hectic in our house this year, and my little moments spent with Simone provided an ideal escape from the chaos from time to time.
The title of the book is clever, too. To explain it here would risk spoiling its subtlety, but suffice it to say that the story is electrifying in more ways than one.
January 15, 2026
A vividly told story of a woman's audacious leap into the unknown, where she discovers true freedom. Both empowering and genuinely funny.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews