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.
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Juliet Greenwood is a historical novelist published by Storm Publishing. Her previous novel, The Last Train from Paris, was published to rave reviews and reached the top 100 kindle chart in the USA. She has long been inspired by the histories of the women in her family, and in particular with how strong-minded and independent women have overcome the limitations imposed on them by the
constraints of their time, and the way generations of women hold families and communities together in times of crisis, including during WW2.
After graduating in English from Lancaster University and Kings College, London, Juliet worked on a variety of jobs to support her ambition to be a full-time writer. These ranged from running a craft
stall at Covent Garden to running a small charity working with disadvantaged children, and collecting oral histories of traditional villages before they are lost forever. She finally achieved her dream of
becoming a published author following a debilitating viral illness, with her first novel being a finalist for The People’s Book Prize and her first two novels reaching #4 and #5 in the UK Kindle store.
Juliet now lives in a traditional quarryman’s cottage in Snowdonia, North Wales, set between the mountains and the sea, with an overgrown garden (good for insects!) and a surprisingly successful
grapevine. She can be found dog walking in all weathers working on the plot for her next novel, camera to hand.
Storm (publisher)
Website Blog Facebook Twitter Instagram BlueSky
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My thoughts: I’m not a huge fan of WW2 set fiction but this is more about Kate Arden’s family secrets and her attempts to pair her memories and the images she finds hidden in a copy of Shakespeare’s sonnets with her reality. She’s always felt like a bit of an outsider in her family – the people she calls Mama and Papa aren’t actually her biological parents.
As war rages across Europe, Kate is sent to Cornwall with a group of refugees. They’re housed in a big house outside of St Ives, formerly an artists retreat. It’s there she finds another link to her own past. The path will lead her to Italy, to Sorrento and Venice, and to the truth about her parents.
In Venice, Sofia is regretting returning to her home city, Italy is under the sway of Il Duce – Mussolini, and then the Nazis, but it is her personal history that’s taking a toll on her. In amongst her mother’s papers she finds documents that cast a new light on what happened to her and to her daughter years before.
As the two women’s stories weave together, a terrible wrong is about to be righted, a family will be reunited and old wounds will be healed. Moving and fascinating, this was a good and interesting read.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
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ramblingmads 
Thank you for this review! I’m glad you enjoyed the story of Kate finding out about her past, that’s the side of all our stories that I love. It’s been strange writing about the emotional impact of WW2 after the pandemic, there are so many parallels I didn’t expect. And families are always fascinating x
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