The Lost Village by Daniela Sacerdoti
Genre: Contemporary fiction, Chick Lit, Women's fiction, Historical fiction
Read: 14th November 2020
Published: 16th November 2020
★★★★ 4 stars
DESCRIPTION:
1945, Italy. Two sisters give birth to two little girls on the same night, huddled under blankets, deep in the black woods that surround the village of Bosconero. They hold their babies close as footsteps approach. If they make even the slightest sound, the German soldiers will find them…
2006. Luce Nardini searches the cobbled streets of a remote Italian village for a house with a faded blue door. Since her only child left home, and with her estranged husband more distant than ever, she’s been completely untethered. Discovering why her mother cut all contact with her family and the village she loved feels like Luce’s last hope at understanding who she is.
Inside the house, she’s relieved to find the grandmother she never knew living out her final days. With a longing look at an ornate wooden box on her nightstand, her grandmother is just beginning to tell the heart-wrenching story of a little village ravaged by war, and why Luce’s mother swore never to return, when then the unthinkable happens: an earth-shattering disaster that shakes the little village of Bosconero to its core.
Feeling more lost than ever before, Luce fears that the secrets of her past have been buried forever. Her only hope is to win back the trust of the small community and find her grandmother’s little wooden box amongst the rubble of the village.
But 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? And will anything have prepared her for the devastating betrayal she finds hidden inside the box…?
An unputdownable historical novel about the secrets we keep to protect the ones we love by the author of million-copy Amazon No 1. bestseller, Watch Over Me. Perfect for anyone who loves Fiona Valpy, Lily Graham or The Letter by Kathryn Hughes.
MY REVIEW:
I am excited to be taking part in the #BooksOnTour #BlogTour for Daniela Sacerdoti's wonderfully emotional tale THE LOST VILLAGE.
What drew me to this novel was the historical aspect that held a kind of mystery from the past as a key to the present. However, the historical story featured only very minimally and I was a little disappointed that it wasn't the main story as alluded to by the tagline "an emotional World War II historical romance set in Italy" and promised by the opening premise. It is more of a contemporary fiction and chick lit with a historical aspect rather than historical fiction as such. However, that aside, THE LOSE VILLAGE was still a hugely enjoyable story that is easy to get lost in within the depths of Italy.
2006: Empty nester Luce Nardini leaves her home in America to travel to her ancestral home in Bosconero, Italy in search of her roots. Her mother Angelina has never spoken of her family or what made her leave the only home she has known and refuses to give Luce the answers for which she seeks. Angelina believes the past is best left in the past. But at 43, Luce feels herself floating adrift and not belonging anywhere since the collapse of her marriage three years before and her son moving away to college.
Her mother was born in Italy towards the end of the war when tensions were rife due to Mussolini's alliance with Germany. Aside from that, all Luce knows that is that she abruptly left some forty years ago at the tender age of 18. Why, is a complete mystery. But now desperate to understand the truth about her mother's past, Luce is determined to discover the family she never knew and the truth as to why her mother fled all those years ago. And the only way to get those answers is to travel to Italy herself.
When she arrives, she is greeted by her cousin, Mathilde, she found thanks to social media and the two women immediately click as if they had always known each other. Luce is desperate to meet her Nonna, her mother's mother, and so they make their way to "Rose Bianca", her family's ancestral home. As soon as she sees the ancient dwelling with the blue door framed by the trailing white roses just as her mother had described it, Luce knew this is where she will find her answers.
As soon as she walks through the blue door, she is greeted by a small elderly woman with her arms outstretched crying "Angelina! You've come home!" Mathilde explains that it is her granddaughter Luce, Angelina's daughter, as Nonna tearfully embraces Luce. But the three women could not foresee Carlo's anger once he learned of Luce's visit, banishing her from the house in which he shared with his mother. Mathilde tries in vain to bring her father around but he refused to entertain the idea of his estranged sister or his niece. Puzzled by the force of his resentment, Mathilde gives Luce a room at her flat to sleep off her jet lag and in which she is welcome stay for the duration of her visit.
Luce then meets Massimo, Mathilde's fiance, and his friends from the volunteer ambulance service, Andrea and Giacomo. With the summer festival in full swing in the village, Luce is introduced to the Italy's finest foods and wine as they dance and enjoy the atmospheric beauty. But she has not forgotten the reason for her visit - to learn the truth about her mother's past and the secrets of her ancestral home.
When she visits "Rose Bianca" again in Carlo's absence, Nonna begins to tell Luce and Mathilde the story of their family and how it all began...starting with her own father's embarking on an adventure that would change the course of their lives. She related the story of growing up with her little sister Nora and the poverty in which they were living. The story took so much out of Nonna that she had to tell it in parts with each separate visit, for at 90 years of age Nonna was no longer young and had a bad heart to contend with.
The relief at discovering the family she never knew, Luce was excited to learn to the truth about her mother's past at last. But she wasn't prepared for the tragedy that was to come when an earthquake decimates the village of Bosconero and the threat of losing her family before amends could be made became real. And as news of the earthquake reached America, her son Eli and ex-husband Ethan and even her mother pleaded with her to return home at once...but Luce refused to return until she had all the answers.
But was it too late? Would she ever discover the truth that caused her mother to flee her home? Would she ever resolve the bad feelings between brother and sister? Would she ever learn the truth about her parentage? And why her mother refuses to speak of the past? Will there be any happy endings?
A story that is equally heartwarming as it is heartbreaking, THE LOST VILLAGE is filled with love, loss and tragedy as one woman embarks on a journey of discovery for the family and a past she has never known. The descriptions are so vivid I felt as if I was right there in Italy surrounded by all it's sights, smells and flavours.
The characters are well-rounded and I loved getting to know them all. Luce is a strong and determined woman as in discovering her past she builds new relationships and strengthens old ones. Mathilde is an idealistic young woman just beginning her life. Massimo is a kind and gentle soul I loved to be alongside. Angelina had a real mystery to her in her refusal to revisit her past but she struck me as a strong self-reliant woman who brought up Luce single-handedly. As bitter and sullen as Carlo was I was eager to learn the truth behind his resentment. And Nonna...well, she is a multi-layered character who surprises us with the various facets of her nature. Whilst Luce is the main narrator throughout the story, it is Nonna who is the core of the story. She is the one who holds the key, not just to the past, but to the entire story.
While it is a dual timeline novel, the time-slips are flashbacks revisited by Nonna in her retelling of the past to Luce. I did enjoy the WW2 backstory but I would have liked to have more of a predominant feature, particularly as it was billed as a WW2 story. As it was, it took a long time to get to that part of the story I began to wonder if it was going to come at all.
Despite this, I still very much enjoyed the book. Daniela Sacerdoti is a new author to me I've not read before and I would be interested to read some more along a similar theme.
Overall, THE LOST VILLAGE is a beautiful tale that takes you through a range of emotions but leaving you with a smile at the end.
I would like to thank #DanielaSacerdoti, #NetGalley, #Bookouture for an ARC of #TheLostVillage in exchange for an honest review.
MEET THE AUTHOR:
Daniela Sacerdoti is the author of the bestselling Glen Avich series which has sold over one million copies in ebook to date, Sacerdoti’s debut novel Watch Over Me was named the eighth bestselling Kindle book of all time in 2015, when she was also ranked as the eleventh top-selling Kindle author. She lives in a small village in the middle of nowhere, with her Scottish husband, two children, a Cocker spaniel and a foundling kitten (who was definitely a witch in a past life).
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