It’s a real pleasure to be joining Bookouture‘s Books-on-tour today – and to share my review of the new book from Anita Chapman, The Tuscan Diary. Published on 25th October – with a lovely cover that really transports you to Tuscany – it’s now available via Amazon for kindle (free via Kindle Unlimited), in paperback, and also as an audiobook. My thanks to Bookouture for inviting me to join the tour and for my advance reading e-copy (provided via netgalley), and to Jess Readett for her ongoing support.
I very much enjoyed Anita’s independently published debut, The Venice Secret (if you missed it, it’s now free via Kindle Unlimited) – it thoroughly deserved it’s inclusion as one of my 2023 Books of the Year, and you can read my review again here. Having signed with one of my favourite publishers, I was delighted to find that I enjoyed her next book, The Florence Letter, even more – such a well written dual time story, with linked stories that were equally engaging and an enthralling mystery needing resolution (you can read my full review again here – and this one’s free via Kindle Unlimited too). A big thank you to Anita for mentioning me in her acknowledgments – but reading and reviewing both her earlier books was such a pleasure, and I was particularly looking forward to reading her next…
As she gazes at the lights of Siena glowing in the dusk, Jessica flips through the yellowing pages of the diary that led her here. Written by her grandfather during the war, it holds the answers to a family secret that might just change everything…
When Jessica’s grandfather left for war, he promised to keep a record of each day he was apart from her grandmother. The diary was lost along with him – until now, when a mysterious, handsome Italian man named Alessandro shows up at Jessica’s door with the diary in hand.
Immediately enchanted by her grandfather’s accounts of Italy’s glittering golden hours, Jess decides to spend a summer in Tuscany before she’s due to take over at her family’s farm. She hopes she can visit the places her grandfather once did – and finally find out what really happened the night he died…
In the historic city of Siena, she finds a job as companion to the glamorous Sofia – Alessandro’s grandmother – whose stories of Italy during the war are captivating. And as Jess spends more time with Alessandro, she begins to fall for him with each lingering look into his deep-brown eyes.
Together, Jess and Alessandro visit her grandfather’s resting place. But the more Jess learns about her grandfather’s time in Italy, the more she’s forced to question whether everything about her family’s past is a lie…
Jess came to Italy in search of answers, but time is running out. She can’t shake the feeling that the diary that has stolen her imagination is merely a work of fiction. And if it is, will the truth about her family inspire her to turn away from the path she thought she was destined for, and towards the life she truly wants?
Let yourself be swept away to Italy in this beautiful story of family secrets and past and present colliding. Readers of Lucinda Riley and Fiona Valpy will be utterly enchanted by this wistful, escapist and romantic page-turner.
This was a book that really captured my imagination from its opening pages – a prologue set in Tuscany in 1943, with an unknown woman caring for a seriously injured foreign soldier. And I was equally drawn in by the wartime life of Eleanor, working in a stationery shop in Leeds, enjoying her time with Peter, the brother of a friend, before he departs for the front. He promises to record his experiences in a leather-bound notebook she sells him – but when, having volunteered to be a land girl, she finds herself in need of his help and support, her letters remain unanswered.
In 1993, at the North Yorkshire farm where she lives with her family, Eleanor’s granddaughter Jessica has an unexpected visitor – Italian-American Alessandro, finally delivering the notebook that had been left with his family. Long hidden secrets are uncovered, and – setting aside the notebook for further exploration – she sets out to find out more about the final days of the man who was her grandfather. Her experiences in Italy rather change her life. Her horizons have been expanded, and she decides to return to Siena – taking leave from her job on the local paper, hoping to gain experience of travel writing, taking an Italian course, caring for Alessandro’s elderly grandmother, and hoping to get rather closer to the man who’s intrigued her so much and made her heart beat rather faster. And as she does so, she examines the notebook’s words more closely – and slowly gains a far greater understanding of her complicated family history.
While I very much enjoyed the historical thread, reading about Eleanor’s experiences during wartime and thereafter – very moving, with some unexpected twists and turns, the whole era so well captured – the majority of the story is contemporary, focused on Jessica’s life in Tuscany. Siena is beautifully drawn, and obviously really well researched, the richness of the descriptions entirely transporting you to its streets and cafes. And, of course, to the approach to the world-famous Palio – with lots of lovely detail about the different contrades and their followers, their flags and colours, and the different elements of the ceremony (it’s always been an experience on my bucket list too).
There’s a strong romantic element, Jessica’s hoped for relationship with Alessandro a little stop-start, but entirely satisfying and convincing. I liked her a lot – she’s delightfully naive, learning about life from the considerably more worldly-wise friend she shares an apartment with. While Alessandro himself is sometimes so laid-back it’s sometimes really difficult to tell whether he’s interested or not – although he always made my heart beat a little faster too, and I always rather hoped he wouldn’t disappoint. And through it all, there’s her slow reading of the notebook, and the secrets it reveals – I think I might have read to its end rather faster than Jessica did, but the pace is just right to allow the full story to emerge and its emotional impact to be fully developed.
I’ll admit there was perhaps a little less historical content than I was expecting – but that was more than made up for by the very real experience of getting to know beautiful Siena. It was such an enjoyable read, a gently told but compelling story with a real emotional punch – and a wholly unexpected outcome to its wider story. Nicely done – and most definitely recommended.
About the author
Anita likes to read journals and diaries from the past, and one of her favourite pastimes is visiting art galleries and country houses. Her first published novel, The Venice Secret, was inspired by her mother taking her to see the Canalettos at The National Gallery in London as a child.
The Venice Secret was published in March 2023 and spent six weeks in the overall Amazon UK Kindle Top 100, reaching number thirty-eight. The Venice Secret has had over four million Kindle Unlimited pages read and received more than 3000 Amazon reviews since publication.
Since 2015, Anita has worked as a social media manager, training authors on social media, and helping to promote their books. She’s run several courses in London and York, and has worked as a tutor at Richmond and Hillcroft Adult Community College.
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