2006: Luce Nardini clutches a plane ticket to Italy in her trembling hands. Since her only child left home, and with her estranged husband more distant than ever, she's been overwhelmed with loneliness. She never knew her father, or the reason why her mother cut all contact with her family in the little village of Bosconero. Lost and unravelling fast, uncovering her roots feels like Luce's last and only hope.
As Luce searches the maze of cobbled streets, a house with a faded blue door draped in perfect white roses stops her in her tracks. Inside is the grandmother she never knew, who - with a longing look at an ornate wooden box on her nightstand - begins to tell the heart-wrenching story of a little village ravaged by war, and why Luce's mother fled home and swore never to return.
Surrounded by new friends and faded frescoes of saints, Luce is just starting to feel like she belongs when the unthinkable happens: an earth-shattering disaster that shakes the little village of Bosconero to its core. Could it be that the secrets of Luce's past have been buried forever?
Frightened, hopeless and feeling more alone than ever before, will the surprise arrival of the husband she thought she'd lost help sew Luce's family back together, or tear it apart for good? One thing is certain: she must find the little wooden box amongst the rubble of the village and return it to her grandmother. But nothing will have prepared Luce for the devastating betrayal she finds inside...
***
Many times she'd been told not to wander the woods during hunting season, from September to the end of October. PROLOGUE
***
(@bookouture, 16 November 2020, 277 pages, ebook, #ARC from the publisher via # NetGalley and voluntarily reviewed, #BlogTour 16 November)
***
***
I've read a few books by the author and am a bit of a fan, so I was really looking forward to reading this. Historical Fiction has become one of my favourite genres this year and I was looking forward to getting lost in Italy. I thought this was a great book. I loved the way the story is split between the present with Luce trying to find out the truth about her mother's secrets and her estrangement from her Italian family and the dark shadows of the past that Luce's probing threaten to set free. I've never been to Italy, but the author does a brilliant job of bringing it to life. This has a real sense of place. The characters are also well-written and really come to life. I got lost in this gorgeous book.
