The Girl from Venice
By Siobhan Daiko
Publication Date: 29th June 2021. Publisher: ASOLANDO BOOKS. Page Length: 300 Pages. Genre: Romantic Historical/Women’s Fiction.
Lidia De Angelis has kept a low profile since Mussolini's racial laws wrenched her from her childhood sweetheart. But when the Germans occupy Venice in 1943, she must flee the city to save her life.
Lidia joins the partisans in the Venetian mountains, where she meets David, an English soldier fighting for the same cause. As she grows closer to him, harsh Nazi reprisals and Lidia’s own ardent anti-fascist activities threaten to tear them apart.
Decades later in London, while sorting through her grandmother’s belongings after her death, Charlotte discovers a Jewish prayer book, unopened letters written in Italian, and a fading photograph of a group of young people in front of the Doge’s Palace.
Intrigued by her grandmother’s refusal to talk about her life in Italy before and during the war, Charlotte travels to Venice in search of her roots. There, she learns not only the devastating truth about her grandmother’s past, but also some surprising truths about herself.
A heart-breaking page-turner, based on actual events in Italy during World War II.
Book Rating:
📚📚📚📚📚⭐ = A book in a million
📚📚📚📚📚 = I could not put this book down. I Highly Recommend it.
📚📚📚📚 = A really great read.
📚📚📚 = It was enjoyable.
📚📚 = It was okay.
📚 = Um...! 😕
My Review
The Girl from Venice
📚📚📚📚📚 = I could not put this book down. I Highly Recommend it.
After reading the blurb, I came into this book with impossibly high expectations, and yet, I was not disappointed. This book ensnared me. It pulled me in and did not let me go until I had finished reading it. It is one of those kind of books.
So onto the story - Lidia’s life is flipped upside-down when the persecution of the Jews begins in Italy (WW2). She loses her access to higher education, which is a bitter blow, and yet that is only the beginning of what will be a journey of hardship and repression, but her story is also one about justice, friendship and love. I thought Lidia's depiction was breathtakingly beautiful. The author has given her readers a strong heroine who, despite the terrible odds, dares to fight back against her peoples' oppressors.
Many years in the future, in 2010, Charlotte starts to unravel the mystery of her beloved Gran’s life. Her Gran never mentioned her life before coming to England, preferring to keep the past in the past and not drag up old memories. The loss of her Gran brings with it a determination to find out where her Gran came from, and where she belongs. Charlotte has no choice, she has to travels to Italy.
Both women were an absolute joy to read about, not that they didn’t have me in tears on more than one occasion. There is action aplenty, but it is levelled out by the more intimate scenes—the conversations between friends and the developing love between two people. I couldn’t help but root for both women, for Lidia to find love and safety, and for Charlotte to find out about her roots, and where her place is in the world.
This book is truly wonderful and completely unputdownable! I cannot wait to read more books by this author!
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