The Tuscan Child by Rhys Bowen is a lovely historical fiction split between 1944 Tuscany and 1973 England and Tuscany. Expertly woven, the story intertwines the two eras into a story which might have been the history of anyone, exploring the impact of one’s actions on the situation of progeny.
In this story, Bowen relates the adventures of an English airman who is forced to abandon his mortally damaged bomber over the skies of Italy only to be found by a local woman who at the risk of her own life and that of her son, husband’s grandmother, and the entire village, decides to help the Englishman hide. A strong relationship blooms between them. For a time Bowen leaves the reader wondering if the relationship survived the war and his return to England.

Some 30 years later, the Englishman dies. His daughter, Joanna, who believes herself to be his only child, returns home to learn she has an older half-brother she has never met and possibly another sibling living in the Tuscan countryside.

Uncovering a part of her father’s life she never knew existed, Joanna is driven to learn more of her father’s time in Italy during the war. She makes her way to Italy only to become entangled in a “new family”, a murder, and an entirely new life while discovering a father she never really knew.

Bowen is a master story-teller and certainly does not disappoint in “The Tuscan Child.” Her characters are well developed, storyline well thought out, situations believable. The story flows with an ease which engages the reader, while allowing for periods away.

I received this book as an ARC from NetGalley.

This book covers two time periods: WWII in Italy and thirty years later. We follow the effects of the war on the people in the towns, as well as, the airman who managed to survive his plane being shot down. You read about the contrast between folks who tried to help the Allies and shared what few supplies they had and those who secretly supported the Nazis. Even after 30 years, the consequences in the war-torn areas are evident. The author does an excellent job of capturing the raw emotions brought about by the dangers and deprivations of war.

Thirty years later, the pilot's daughter visits this small town in Italy where her father was shot down. She is greeted with locals who want to help her learn more about her dad and others who are openly hostile.

I really enjoyed following the families in the two time periods

The Tuscan Child is absolutely another richly well done story by Rhys Bowen. She makes the 26 simple letters of the alphabet into page after page of stories that I cannot help but keep turning the page for. I don't recap stories in my reviews but I do need to say this: do yourself a favor and please read The Tuscan Child. The pages will almost turn themselves :)

I love this era in a book. It is a great book with such wonderful characters and pulls you in from the start. You won’t want to put it down. It’s a very well written book and my first by this author. I loved it.

This book sucks you in and doesn't let you go. I love WWII novels and this is up there with some of the best ones I've read. It would definitely give book clubs plenty to discuss.

Past actions coloring today's possibilities.

Fascinating story that has a young English woman tracing the mystery of her father's plight in the Tuscan countryside after his plane was shot down during World War 11.
Finding hints about a possible sibling when packing up her dead father's belongings, Joanna Langley travels to the village of San Salvatore in Tuscany in the hopes of learning more.
What she finds are old secrets and mysteries, and a glimpse into the heart of a father she barely knew. A murdered local feeds into the intrigue. The story of Hugo Langley's time in Tuscany is told through Joanna's father's voice. These time slips between the past of 1944 and the present heightening the tension. And yet there is a strong thread of connection, fed by a woman who links the two, Sofia Bartoli.
Certainly the opening chapters paint two very different sides of the same man. The Hugo we come to know of 1944 and Joanna's memories of him in 1973 are world apart.
An enjoyable and very plausible read!

A NetGalley ARC

Thx to Netgalley, lake union publishing and Rhys Bowen for this ARC. I love this authors Molly Murphy series. I am a big fan of this author. . This is a stand alone book which I simply loved as well. She writes about WWIi but not so much that it becomes a history lesson as in so many others who write on that subject. It was perfect, there is adventure, romance, and mystery. What’s not to love !?

Lovely story of a woman uncovering secrets from her family's past. The story deftly switches back and forth between the 1940s and the 1970s. The setting in Tuscany totally satisfied my imagination with vivid imagery and striking characters. Fans of Rhys Bowen's other novels will not be disappointed.

I chose to read this because I enjoy Rhys Bowen's Her Royal Spyness series so much. This was a very different kettle of fish being set half in World War 2 and half in 1970's England and Tuscany.

A big problem for any book when the author has chosen to write alternately in different time periods is if the two are not perfectly balanced in interest for the reader. In The Tuscan Child I was much more interested in Joanna than I was in Hugo which meant I put the book down and went off to do something else much more than I normally would!

Nevertheless this was still an enjoyable if predictable story. Tuscany sounded absolutely delightful and there was a lot of interesting information about food! Worth a read.

I loved the intertwined stories of a young woman who hides a wounded WWII soldier in Italy and the grown daughter of the soldier who tries to uncover the mystery of her father's life. I definitely had trouble getting into this at first (the author's British tone lacks feeling sometimes), but overall, I was intrigued with the suspense of the story and was completely satisfied with the ending. I'd probably recommend this to someone who likes historical fiction.

Rhys Bowen has captured me with a marvelous book from page one. I loved this novel sweeping between two eras in Italy.
She is remarkable in her ability to form a well crafted story .
All expertly researched placing the reader in Italy with the characters.
This book is giving two stories -the WWII experience of the main character's father in Italy and the 1970's daughter trying to find out more about his war experience and his love of his life.
It is wonderfully done and quite engaging. I loved it and read it cover to cover.
Thank you for the ARC which did not influence my review .

The Tuscan Child is a book I read a few months ago that I had been wanting to write a full-length review for…and never got around to it. I still want to gush over it, however, so a mini review it is! Back in November, I FINALLY discovered Rhys after falling hard for a Christmas-themed mystery, The Ghost of Christmas Past. When I saw a standalone WWII novel available on netgalley, I couldn’t request it fast enough.

The Tuscan Child is a dual-era novel (SWOON) telling the tale of a woman in the early 1970s who returns home to her family’s once lavish country estate (since turned into a girls’ boarding school) upon the news of her father’s death. While cleaning out Sir Hugo’s belongings, Joanna discovers a small box, a box that holds a letter – written in Italian?? – along with several small artifacts. As she digs into the box’s contents, she learns much more about her father than he ever let on, his time during the war, his stay in Italy, a woman and child (his?) he cared for. It’s clear to me that Rhys Bowen is no one hit wonder – I loved this story and am eager to dive into more of her work! On a side note, while reading Laura Madeleine’s Where the Wild Cherries Grow, I couldn’t help but compare the two: foodies will delight in both of these stories. While Cherries is centered in southern France, The Tuscan Child features pages upon pages of mouth-watering descriptions of Italian dishes.

The Tuscan Child marks my first experience reading one of Rhys Bowen’s adult novels even though she’s written many, primarily mysteries. However, when I was in middle and high school, I was a fan of the Sweet Dreams teenage romances and have fond memories of them, including the ones written by Bowen under her real name.

Both foodies and anyone dreaming of a vacation in scenic Italy should be drawn to The Tuscan Child. It fits in with two historical fiction trends – multi-period novels about secrets from the past, and World War II – and its locale and plot twists add originality.

In 1973, following some personal trauma, Joanna Langley returns home to Surrey after getting notified of her father’s unexpected death. Sir Hugo Langley had been a baronet, but financial hardship had forced him to sell the family estate, Langley Hall, years ago. Now it’s a girls’ boarding school, which Joanna attended growing up; Sir Hugo had worked as the art master there while living with his wife and daughter in the gatekeeper’s lodge. A mystery unfolds when Joanna goes through her father’s effects and finds a love letter he wrote, in Italian, addressed to “Mia carissima Sofia” and referring to “their beautiful boy,” whose whereabouts he kept secret. The letter had been returned to sender.

Joanna knows that Sir Hugo, a former RAF pilot, had flown WWII bombing missions and was injured after being shot down but never spoke about it. Needless to say, an unknown half-brother is quite a surprise. Joanna has little to go on but, determined to find him, she packs up and travels to Italy for answers. Her story alternates with Hugo’s nearly thirty years earlier, as he parachutes out of a damaged plane, conceals himself in crumbling monastery ruins near the Tuscan village of San Salvatore, and is aided by a young mother, Sofia, whose husband is missing in action.

Bowen made feel I was there alongside Hugo—cold, feverish, and creatively devising sources of shelter and food—and Joanna, experiencing a sense of freedom in the sun-dappled Tuscan hills. Both father and daughter find themselves in life-threatening situations: he from the Germans, and she because soon after she arrives, she learns someone doesn’t want old secrets uncovered.

The suspenseful aspects are counterbalanced by the mouthwatering recipes (Joanna’s landlady is a talented cook who wants to fatten her up so she'll find a husband) and depictions of the picturesque Tuscan countryside, with its rows of olive trees, rocky crags, and ocher-colored roofs. The Tuscan Child isn’t a mystery by genre; the plot is rather sedate at times. Still, Bowen’s deep roots in the genre are noticeable. I admired one plot twist, since I would have found it nearly impossible to predict.

Despite some stereotypical personalities, I enjoyed spending time in San Salvatore and recommend the book to anyone who wants to “travel by novel.”

(Published at Reading the Past)

Set in two time lines, 1973 and 1944. Flash back to Tuscany 1944, before his plane crashes and burns, Hugo Langley parachutes down in an open field, surrounded with olive trees. In 1973 Joanna Langley, is called back to her home from London upon the death of her father. She is the sole survivor of his estate, which is now a school for girls and even though her father was titled, there is nothing much left of his estate. Except for a mysterious letter found among his belongings. With nothing left to keep her there and with what little money was left to her, Joanna goes off to Italy to clear the mystery left by the letter.

I find it interesting to read a story divided by different decades, it's what keeps a book interesting. There is always one story that takes over, that is more interesting. This was not the case here, both kept me glued to the book. What I find most true of today's novels is the used of dual timelines, as it seems the norm these days. There are many readers who are not in favor of this method, for me it is enjoyable, especially in the historic genre.

This is a 4 star review and happily so. Thanks to NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for a honest review.

The pace was too slow for me on this particular book. While I love her Georgie series and In Fairleigh Field, I was not as enamored with this story.

This was a very good story set in two time periods, one during WW-ll where a British pilot, Hugo Langley is shot down over Tuscany and the other in 1973 and of Hugo's daughter Joanna Langley, who when told that her father had died, goes back to her old home to take care of any arrangements and to sort out his few belongings. She and her father had been estranged but while going through his belongings, she finds a letter which he had written to a woman by the name of Sofia Bartoli in Italy, but which had been returned unopened, many many years ago.
Her father had never really talked about his time in Italy and when Joanna, finds that letter she has an urge to see what happened to him in his time there, and to get a better picture of who he really was.
Going through her own tough time in London, she decides she will make the trip, to the small town where his plane went down.
This novel has a good story line on both ends, we meet some very memorable characters and experience, the feel of a small Italian town, with all of its warmth, food, love and mystery. This was a fun read.
I would like to thank NetGalley and Lake Union Publishing for the ARC of this book.

Thank you to NetGalley and Rhys Bowen for allowing me to read and review The Tuscan Child. I really enjoyed this book!

I had enjoyed In Farleigh Field, so I was pleased to get an advance copy of this novel. Bowen is again covering the time period of WWII. The book is told in two parts, Hugo Langley’s escape after his plane goes down over Tuscany in 1944 and his daughter Joanna’s return to their home after his death in 1973 and subsequent trip to Italy.

This book starts off slowly. I wasn’t immediately invested in Joanna’s story. For starters, I had trouble identifying the era. The only time the 70s came through was when Joanna was explaining why she was a solicitor rather than a barrister. It took me right back to my own story, back when I was starting off in banking and told I couldn’t enter commercial lending. In both cases what we lacked was down below not up above.

Luckily, Bowen does a much better job placing you in Tuscany than in time. Her descriptions took me right back there. And don’t read this while hungry, she does a great job describing the food.

But overall, the book had trouble holding my interest. Even with a murder, it lacks suspense. I could see where things were going from miles away. Also, there are several implausible scenes in the book, especially at the end. The only good news is that there is a big twist I didn’t see coming in Hugo’s story.

My thanks to netgalley and Lake Union Publishing for an advance copy of this book.

Rhys Bowen is a new-to-me author so I didn't know what to expect when I started The Tuscan Child. I loved everything about this book; the story line, the wonderful way the author writes, and the way she made me feel like I was there with her characters—characters that I came to care about.

The story is told from two different time frames, going back and forth as Joanna digs into her father's past and learns about the mysterious Sofia. There is enough mystery, intrigue, and suspense to keep the story moving forward and kept me wanting to read 'just one more chapter'.

I am definitely going to be reading more of Rhys Bowen's stories, now that I have discovered her!

Historical novels usually have to be very good in order to capture and hold my attention, and this one fit the bill. In this story, we travel with Joanna Langley from Surrey, England in the early 1970s into the lush, rolling hills of Tuscany and the little village of San Salvatore as she searches for clues about her recently deceased father’s past. Along the way, we are also treated to her father’s story of survival and romance at the end of German occupation of Italy during WWII.

The story was well-written and compelling. The dual timelines were not distracting, but instead lent even more drama and build-up to the story as a whole. Both perspectives were given equal attention and were very well represented by the author. Bowen’s writing was crisp and colorful without being muddled in unnecessary details. I especially enjoyed the descriptions of the Tuscan landscape and the delicious food – it made me long to visit Italy.

Fans of historical fiction will appreciate this novel for its skilled placement in two distinctly different eras of history. Lovers of romantic fiction will also appreciate the tender love stories that develop as well.

**Many thanks to NetGalley, Lake Union Publishing, and the author for the opportunity for me to read and review this book.