Review: The Italian Ballerina

Title: The Italian Ballerina

Author: Kristy Cambron

Publisher: 12th July 2022 by Thomas Nelson

Pages: 384 pages

How I Read It: ARC book

Genre:  historical fiction, World War II, romance, Italy

My Rating: 4 cups

Synopsis:

A prima ballerina. Two American medics. And a young Jewish girl with no name . . . At the height of the Nazi occupation of Rome, an unlikely band of heroes comes together to save Italian Jews in this breathtaking World War II novel based on real historical events.

Rome, 1943. With the fall of Italy’s Fascist government and the Nazi regime occupying the streets of Rome, British ballerina Julia Bradbury is stranded and forced to take refuge at a hospital on Tiber Island. But when she learns of a deadly sickness that is sweeping through the quarantine wards—a fake disease known only as Syndrome K—she is drawn into one of the greatest cons in history. Alongside hospital staff, friars of the adjoining church, and two Allied medics, Julia risks everything to rescue Italian Jews from the deadly clutches of the Holocaust. But when one little girl who dreams of becoming a ballerina arrives at their door, Julia and the others are determined to reunite the young dancer with her family—if only she would reveal one crucial secret: her name.

Present Day. With the recent loss of her grandfather—a beloved small-town doctor and WWII veteran—Delaney Coleman returns home to help her aging parents, even as she struggles to pick up the pieces of her own life. When a mysterious Italian woman claims she owns one of the family’s precious heirlooms, Delaney is compelled to uncover what’s true of her grandfather’s hidden past. Together with the woman’s skeptical but charming grandson, Delaney learns of a Roman hospital that saved hundreds of Jewish people during the war. Soon, everything Delaney thought she knew about her grandfather comes into question as she wrestles with the possibility that the man she’d revered all her life had unknown ties to Rome and may have taken noble secrets to his grave.

Based on true accounts of the invented Syndrome K sickness, The Italian Ballerina journeys from the Allied storming of the beaches at Salerno to the London ballet stage and the war-torn streets of WWII Rome, exploring the sometimes heart-wrenching choices we must make to find faith and forgiveness, and how saving just one life can impact countless others.

My Thoughts

Author, Kristy Cambron, writes at the conclusion of her novel: In this way history is powerful. To remember. To learn. To see and understand the human experience through another’s lens. And we hope to give empathy a foothold to grow in our own hearts. Let us be changed. I love this and found her latest book, The Italian Ballerina, to be a wonderful piece of historical fiction full of empathy and hope.

‘A voice inside told Court as sure as anything he’d known in his entire life - he was there for a reason. The reason was her.’

There is a little girl with a battered suitcase, memories she has locked safely away from the invading soldiers. Two kind soldiers who go to incredible lengths to save her and a ballerina who learns what it really means to give and succeed in life. In the contemporary timeline, there is a soccer star who seeks to protect those he loves and a young American searching for answers surrounding a battered suitcase she has inherited from her grandfather. This is an exquisitely written tale that delightfully comes full circle. 

“What does a ballerina have to give? Truly?” Julia tipped her shoulders in a delicate shrug. “I’d dreamed all my life of dancing on the grandest stages in the world. I thought to achieve that would bring me happiness. Or purpose. And it did, for a time. But I stand here with you and find what we’re doing in this one moment matters more to me than all the years of dancing that have come before it. I’m not even certain how I know that, except that I’ve found the most beautiful things in this life to be not of my own hand. And I can see a plan in all of that.”

The only drawback to this wonderful novel is the scattered timelines - rather than being a dual tale there are four timelines that sadly, make it difficult to follow at times. This is compounded through erratic switching and streamlining for smoother transitions would have been desirable. If not for these disconnections I would have rated the book more highly. This is a tale certainly worth reading but concentration is required and flicking back and forth is near impossible on a kindle. 

The Italian Ballerina is a wonderfully rich take full of despair and courage, loss, love and hope. The time spent in modern day Rome and the wartime hospital learning of Syndrome K was a definite highlight. There is romance, drama and the reader walking away all the richer with a full heart. Recommended to lovers of historical fiction. 

“We’re all human, Matt. We all make mistakes and we learn from them. You have to allow for forgiveness in there somewhere. Without grace, none of us would make it a day.”

This review is based on a complimentary copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own. The quoted material may have changed in the final release.

Review: Six Days in Rome

Title: Six Days in Rome

Author: Francesca Giacco

Publisher: 10th May 2022 by Hachette Australia

Pages: 270 pages

How I Read It: ARC book

Genre:  fiction, contemporary, travel, Italy, romance

My Rating: 4 cups

Synopsis:

Emilia arrives in Rome reeling from heartbreak and reckoning with her past. What was supposed to be a romantic trip has, with the sudden end of a relationship, become a solitary one instead. As she wanders, music, art, food, and the beauty of Rome's wide piazzas and narrow streets color Emilia's dreamy, but weighty experience of the city. She considers the many facets of her life, drifting in and out of memory, following her train of thought wherever it leads.

While climbing a hill near Trastevere, she meets John, an American expat living a seemingly idyllic life. They are soon navigating an intriguing connection, one that brings pain they both hold into the light.

As their intimacy deepens, Emilia starts to see herself anew, both as a woman and as an artist. For the first time in her life, she confronts the ways in which she's been letting her father’s success as a musician overshadow her own. Forced to reckon with both her origins and the choices she's made, Emilia finds herself on a singular journey—and transformed in ways she never expected.

Equal parts visceral and cerebral, Six Days in Rome is an ode to the Eternal City, a celebration of art and creativity, and a meditation on self-discovery.

My Thoughts

If you are looking for something different and a virtual trip to Europe, then this could well prove the ticket. Six Days in Rome is a unique piece of literature with this ancient city playing a major character. Don’t be deceived - this book is far from being a travel journal. It is a sublime reflection on relationships in all its various forms. For sure, there are wonderful descriptive passages on Roman cuisine, locales and the general ambiance. Yet it is equal parts a delve into the lead characters past and her  life in America. 

‘Is this how these six days are going to unfold? Circling strangers, overhearing hints of their lives, imagining what the rest might resemble? Wanting to know them? Not being able to?’

At one level you have Emilia who is dealing with the breakup of her relationship and a trip to Rome that is now solo rather than duo. Emilia is the conduit through which the reader observes and reflects on a plethora of sites, sounds and situations. Emilia takes you on a journey not only through Rome itself (which is wonderful) but also through her life and loves - a reflection on her life and a vast array of experiences from her past. Somewhat of a romance but I rather see some of her encounters as opportunities to challenge and face her past demons. 

‘No one knows me here, and with that, certain things seem possible. Like I’m capable of strength or abandon on this side of the ocean that would be laughable at home. I'm someone else waiting for something new to happen.’

Francesca’s writing is something quite unique. There is no major plot going on here. Rather, this is a person who takes these six days for ambling introspection - her relationships, her family, her job, her future. This is messy and even in the end, nothing is boxed up neatly and placed away. Rather this is prose exploring art, freedoms, love and loss.  I am somewhat torn by this book. On the one hand there is so much to relate to and embrace and yet …. it does jump around and go off on sudden tangents. It may be six days in Rome but there are a lot of days spent elsewhere. 

‘This was a deal I made with myself before coming here: no communicating with anyone from my real life, within reason. The idea was to double down on solitude, in hopes it might teach me something. That maybe, with no outside interference, I could start to see more clearly.’

There is no escaping that this is a beautifully written book. This is a book that makes you pause and ponder, it is character based and one hundred percent reflective. I have many highlights that I will return to and contemplate. There is much on offer here to encourage you to spend Six Days in Rome.

This review is based on a complimentary copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own. The quoted material may have changed in the final release.