From New York Times bestselling author Rhys Bowen comes a haunting novel about a woman who braves her father’s hidden past to discover his secrets…In 1944, British bomber pilot Hugo Langley parachuted from his stricken plane into the verdant fields of German-occupied Tuscany. Badly wounded, he found refuge in a ruined monastery and in the arms of Sofia Bartoli. But the love that kindled between … love that kindled between them was shaken by an irreversible betrayal.
Nearly thirty years later, Hugo’s estranged daughter, Joanna, has returned home to the English countryside to arrange her father’s funeral. Among his personal effects is an unopened letter addressed to Sofia. In it is a startling revelation.
Still dealing with the emotional wounds of her own personal trauma, Joanna embarks on a healing journey to Tuscany to understand her father’s history–and maybe come to understand herself as well. Joanna soon discovers that some would prefer the past be left undisturbed, but she has come too far to let go of her father’s secrets now…
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A real page-turner. This book has everything. Great World War II setting, lost family, romance, action. I hated to finish it.
I really enjoyed this book…great ending…you won’t be disappointed.
Historical Suspense Thriller and a little romance. Split time periods 1944 and 1973. A mystery surrounds a young English woman’s father and family. What really happened to her father in 1944 war torn Italy? Secrets, traitors, murders, greed, tragedy, treasures, mystery and new lives found. Looking forward to another Rhys Bowen book.
I read The Tuscan Child book because I lived in Italy for three years and visited Tuscany frequently. Also I’d heard this book had an art historical bent to it. The book is a bit of a genre-blend with a mystery, a bit of a travelogue, and a romance to boot. It is for cozy mystery type readers, those enjoying foreign locales, as well as those liking genre-bending fiction. Ms. Bowen typically writes mysteries and has received many awards for the Molly Murphy series, the Lady Georgiana series, and the Constable Evan Evans series. She has written stand-alone novels, including most recently In Farleigh Field, also set during World War II, and The Tuscan Child.
Ms. Bowen’s prose is clear and easy to read. She has chosen to tell this story in the point-of-view of a British lord, Hugo Langley, serving as a World War II fight pilot in Italy in the 1940s alternating with that of his daughter, Joanna Langley, a woman in her late twenties studying for the bar in the 1970s and dealing with her own traumas. She avoid visiting him, seeing only the “old and bitter, remote and resigned, [father] who had long ago given up on the world.” He, in turn, doesn’t agree with certain life decisions she has made.
The first chapter starts as the pilot’s plane is spiraling out of control and about to crash. It is exciting and definitely shows the POV of a rational man making tough decisions under extreme stress. That excitement fades with the next two chapters written in the daughter’s POV as she returns home at his death. These chapters are slow, but eventually Joanna finds artifacts that help her see her father for the man he had once been. Her own life in tatters, these items propel her to Italy, to the fictitious hamlet of San Salvatore, where the majority of the story is set, to try to piece together her father’s history.
Bowen also handles scenery well, capturing the atmosphere of Tuscany with its heat, its vegetables, orchards, even its cooking. She sometimes lingers a bit too long on the beauty of the area, however. For example: “Down below shops were open to the street: a butcher or delicatessen with piles of salami in the window, a shoe shop, a wine merchant with casks outside. Impossibly narrow alleys led off from that central street, some hung with laundry, others with casks of wine outside doorways. And everywhere there were bright window boxes full of geraniums…” On and on for well over a page.
Despite its slow start after an exciting opening, I enjoyed reading The Tuscan Child. Bowen masterfully teases the reader with several minor mysteries in one POV that are somewhat solved later, sometimes in another POV, all leading up to the big mystery. For example, Joanna has her own tragedies, and these are carefully withheld by Bowen and revealed somewhat later in the book. Her father’s mysteries gradually come to light as well as the identity of the “Tuscan Child.” The romantic ending is a bit too tidy.
I read this book following a recommendation and thoroughly enjoyed it. A book that is difficult to put down once you begin reading it. The story flowed beautifully to its conclusion.
A very interesting story of a daughter finding out what happened to her father during WWII. Great characters and a touch of mystery
Time switch story set partly in modern times and partly during World War II in Tuscany. Story is a bit predictable but entertaining nonetheless. Keeps the reader guessing about the “Tuscan child”. Rhys Bowen is usually a writer to give you a good novel.
Very entertaining.
Have been reading some heavy topics lately. This is a page turner. Love the book .
Good read with plot twists, history, and beautiful Italy countryside as backdrop..
Loved it
I have to admit that I am a devoted fan of anything Rhys Bowen writes, whether its her lighthearted Spy novels or deep and affecting books like The Tuscan Child. I happened to listen to this on Audible driving to and from Los Angeles during the pandemic and several times, I sat in a gas station long after I’d topped off my tank, unwilling to make a move until a chapter had ended. The dual-story structure of a young woman seeking answers to her origins and the unfolding saga of what had happened to her father who’d been shot down over Tuscany in WW II is absolutely riveting– and a masterful way of revealing secrets long held tight. I just loved it.
This book was slightly better than the other novel by Bowen I reviewed on these pages (In Farleigh Field). It follows the story of a disillusioned young Englishwoman who goes to Italy in the 1970s to learn about her father who survived several months in the mountains of northern Italy as a downed RAF pilot during the Second World War. Again, as I wrote in my other review, Bowen utilizes cliches all too often and her writing style is prosaic at best.
The Tuscan Child takes place alternately in 1944 and 1973, and the narrators are a father and his daughter.
Hugo Langley, a British pilot, is shot down over the Tuscan countryside in December of 1944. He’s the only survivor of the plane crash, but his leg is badly injured. He is discovered by Sofia Bartoli, a young woman from the nearby village of San Salvatore. She helps him to hide in the ruins of a nearby monastery and brings him food and whatever medical supplies she can find.
Then the action moves to 1973 when Joanna Langley goes back to her ancestral home to deal with her father’s sudden death. Joanna is in a bad place herself, but grateful for the small legacy Hugo left her. Among his things she finds a letter to Sofia that was returned after war in which he declares his love for her and makes a cryptic reference to their “beautiful boy” being hidden. Intrigued and without work, she uses his legacy to travel to San Salvatore to find out what happened back in 1944. Once there, she meets Sofia’s son Renzo, but finds that the past mystery is not easily uncovered, and that someone wants it to stay buried. Someone who is willing to kill to keep his or her secrets.
I really enjoyed this book. I felt sympathy for Joanna’s predicament as well as Hugo’s. The subplot involving Paola Rossini, who rents a room to Joanna and teaches her about Italian cooking, is charming and heartwarming. And then there’s the handsome but mercurial Renzo. Can he be trusted or not?
If you enjoy Susanna Kearsley’s books, you will probably enjoy The Tuscan Child. In the end, the main villain was a bit obvious, but there was an interesting twist toward the end that I didn’t see coming. The pace is fast, the characters engrossing, and the description of both countryside and food is lovely.
I’ve read a few books by Rhys Bowen and this is my favorite book so far. It takes place in Italy during WWII and is very well written. I can highly recommend it!
Rhys Bowen is such a talented author. Loved this story!
1/2021- An interesting WWII novel told from the perspective of a man hiding during WWII and his daughter 30 years later. While it starts out a bit slow and confusing, as the story picks up its hard to put down. The characters are interesting and you want to figure out how it all connects and comes together.
Top notch.
Good read. Plot just a little too convenient. Without earthquakes, storyline would not work.
Very unusual style and format. Very interesting. I really liked this book.