The Secret Daughter of Venice by Juliet Greenwood
Genre: Historical fiction, WW2
Read: 21st May 2024
Published: 14th May 2024
★★ 2 stars
DESCRIPTION:
The paper is stiff and brittle with age as Kate unfolds it with trembling hands. She gasps at the pencil sketch of a rippling waterway, lined by tall buildings, curving towards the dome of a cathedral. She feels a connection deep in her heart. Venice.
England, 1941. When Kate Arden discovers a secret stash of drawings hidden in the pages of an old volume of poetry given to her as a baby, her breath catches. All her life, she has felt like an outsider in her aristocratic adoptive family, who refuse to answer any questions about her past. But the drawings spark a forgotten memory: a long journey by boat… warm arms that held her tight, and then let go.
Could these pictures unlock the secret of who she is? Why her mother left her? With war raging around the continent, she will brave everything to find out…
A gripping, emotional historical novel of love and art that will captivate fans of The Venice Sketchbook, The Woman on the Bridge and The Nightingale.
MY THOUGHTS:
To fight for her future, she must solve the mystery of her past...
So this is my second read by Juliet Greenwood, my first having been "The Ferryman's Daughter" which I absolutely loved! Unfortunately, anything that followed had big shoes to fill in that respect and unfortunately, this one just didn't live up to my expectations. I really struggle with any story set in and around Italy and during the war. I can read them set in Britain, France or even Germany but for some reason I struggle with Italy. Maybe it's the language and pronunciations of places and names, I don't know, but then I would have that problem with Germany since I don't read German either. I don't know but I struggled with this story. Even moreso because it runs on from "The Shakespeare Sisters" which came before it and I haven't read. Although I do believe both books are standalones in themselves but they do feature some of the same characters. Namely the Ardens and Arden House.
This story however, was about Kate. She is something of a ring-in with the village with her olive complexion and jet black hair. She didn't look like the other Arden children and yet she was brought up alongside them as one of them. It is this that makes Kate always feel like the odd one out in the family. Kate has three sisters - Rosalind, Cordelia and Bianca - the first two having been banished by their father for some such slight as not accepting the hand of some local gentry which is pretty much a woman's lot. She also has two brothers Will and Jamie who are away fighting the enemy. But with her Italian looks, doesn't that make her an enemy also?
Kate works alongside the land girls digging for victory in their garden, growing vegetables to feed the nation and whatnot, when she unearths what appears to be an old Roman artefact. She takes it off to Miss Parsons, the local school teacher who also runs the museum, but Kate knows her brother Jamie will love the artefact. Miss Parsons however gives her a book of Shakespeare sonnets left to each of the girls by their late mother, looking for something that is to allude to her future. After much fruitless searching and Miss Parsons' encouragement not to give up, Kate comes across a collection of sketches which immediately brings back flashes of memories. A woman, a boat and learning to draw.
Kate is a talented artist but her father wouldn't allow her study art instead wanting her to marry well and keep Arden House in the family. But in these flashes of memories, she sees a woman who taught her to draw. Who is she? Is this her long lost mother?
Sofia Armstrong returns to Venice after twenty years just as the war has broken out in Europe. Her own mother has fled leaving her maid Magdalena. But Sofia is on a mission. She wants to find her daughter. The one who was stolen away from her two decades before and she has no idea where she is now. How will she find her?
We are taken on an emotion journey but it is rather long filled with unpronounceable names and I could visualise myself on the canals of Venice, sadly. The closest I could get was a 1980s Madonna dancing in a gondola, wearing a wedding dress and dipping beneath the bridges across the canal whilst singing "Like a Virgin".
Nevertheless, it is an engrossing read for one who is enraptured by the surroundings and the language but I felt something of a WiFi signal blocker preventing me from feeling all that the reader is meant to feel.
I would read her again, as I loved "The Ferryman's Daughter" so I know how the author can capture my heart. But this one was just not for me,
I would like to thank #JulietGreenwood, #Netgalley, #StormPublishing and #RachelsRandomResources for an ARC of #TheSecretDaughterOfVenice in exchange for an honest review.
MEET THE AUTHOR:
After studying English at Lancaster University and King’s College, London, Juliet worked in a variety of jobs, from running a craft stall at Covent Garden Market to teaching English.
Juliet began writing seriously about ten years ago, after a severe viral illness left her with debilitating ME/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome for years. Juliet always says that M.E. was the worst, and the best, thing that ever happened to her. On one hand, it sent her from being able to walk up mountains with ease to struggling to do the simplest of everyday tasks for more than a few minutes at a time. But on the other, it forced her to re-evaluate her life and her priorities. And it made her a writer.
Juliet is now well and back to dog walking and working on her beloved garden. As well as novels under her own name, Juliet writes stories and serials for magazines as ‘Heather Pardoe’.
When not writing, Juliet works on local oral history projects, helping older people tell their stories before they are lost forever. She also helps aspiring writers towards being published.
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