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The Venice Sketchbook: A Novel

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A: I’ve known Venice since my family used to spend time there when I was a child so it all feels familiar to me, but each time I go I discover something new. Obviously favorite parts of the city are some of the popular tourist spots. Standing on the Accademia Bridge and looking down toward Rialto is magical. Having coffee in St. Mark’s Square is perfect (but really expensive these days. My parents did it every morning!) I love attending high mass at St. Marks and listening to the sound of the choir soaring up to that dome. I love visiting La Fenice opera house and going to concerts in the churches. I wrote Juliet with a secret life. Itmade me think of my aunt although Juliet was much more of a free spirit. Both, in their later years, shut off their emotions.But as a young woman Juliet was hopeful and looked at the world as a wonderful place.Then things went bad as she lost her wealth, father, and hit hard times.In Venice, she is facing a World War.Throughout her life, she has been cheated.” Love and secrets collide in Venice during WWII in an enthralling novel of brief encounters and lasting romance by the New York Times bestselling author of The Tuscan Child and Above the Bay of Angels. I think that the issues I had with Lettie/Julietta’s part of the story was that so much of what she did has been written before, and the parts of the story that were unique to her were a bit too predictable, especially her doomed romance and its results. Caroline Grant (2001), young mother, who is trying to accept the end of her marriage and to move forward in her life. When her great-aunt Lettie died she received a task to go to Venice to scatter aunt's ashes and find the truth about Juliet's youth.

The Venice Sketchbook by Rhys Bowen - Fantastic Fiction

All that’s to say that it feels like parts of this story have been done before, and recently, and perhaps for this reader a bit of World War II historical fiction fatigue has set in. So I found this take on that historic conflict to be a bit too much like too many things I’ve read before, in spite of the change in setting. Readers will enjoy the detailed descriptions provided by Bowen. She brings Venice to lifewith its amazing gondolas and canals, vaporetto, narrow streets, festivals, churches, art exhibitions, food, the colorful people, culture, and family ties. There are never ending passages that read like a travelogue of Venice which may be of interest to someone who has been to Venice. I have not. I can’t believe it…this is the first book I have read by prolific writer Rhys Bowen. Although I thought it somewhat fairytailish, after the last few years, maybe it was just nice to escape into a fairy tale, albeit bittersweet.Juliet's "voice" seems so melancholy throughout her story and she has reason to feel that way. After her 1928 visit to Venice, Juliet's plans to attend art college are cut short by her father's financial losses and she must take a teaching job to support herself and her mom, after her father's death. In 1938 and then 1939, Juliet is able to travel to Venice and each time she runs into Leo. It's on what should be her year long visit to Venice in 1939 that Juliet knows she is in love with the married Leo. War is coming closer and closer but Juliet refuses to return to her home where she would be safer. A: All of the festivals that take place are real. The Venetian tolerance for the Jews and then the brutal rounding up by the Germans are all real. The Contessa is typical of a patron of the arts at that time. It should have been fabulous but I'm afraid I found it predictable, slow paced and lifeless. The events covered in the 1939-1943 segment were undoubtedly the more interesting but not enough for me to actually care about the predictable events which unfolded. Overall, it’s a really mixed bag. The premise is good, parts of Juliet’s story are interesting but on the whole story is thin. I had the feeling the author wants to transport herself from her Covid bubble and grabbed a much thumbed Baedeker guide to Venice and bobs your aunt Hortense or Lettie. I don’t dislike the book by any means though I don’t think I’ll remember it and so my rating is in Switzerland with Lettie.

The Venice Sketchbook by Rhys Bowen - The Real Book Club Queen The Venice Sketchbook by Rhys Bowen - The Real Book Club Queen

Questions are invoked, questions that open up the past and uncover some startling events that have had long term consequences. Rhys Bowen is the New York Timesbestselling author of more than forty novels, including Above the Bay of Angels, The Victory Garden, The Tuscan Child, and the World War II–based In Farleigh Field, the winner of the Macavity and Left Coast Crime Awards for Best Historical Mystery Novel and the Agatha Award for Best Historical Mystery. Bowen’s work has won twenty honors to date, including multiple Agatha, Anthony, and Macavity Awards. Her books have been translated into many languages, and she has fans around the world. A transplanted Brit, Bowen divides her time between California and Arizona.Love and secrets collide in Venice during WWII in an enthralling novel of brief encounters and lasting romance by the New York Times bestselling author of The Tuscan Child and Above the Bay of Angels . Did you agree with Caroline's decision to allow her son to stay in the U.S. with his dad? Why or why not? Truly delightful both the story and the writing. Using a dual time line pre and post WW11 (Juliet Browning) and 2001 (Caroline Grant). Both periods mainly set in Venice. Both involving our heroines falling in love with Italian men from a prominent Venician family.

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