This dual time line story is part historical fiction, part mystery, and totally enjoyable. The connection between the main characters and what they are facing along with the descriptions of Rome kept me reading and wanting to know more.

The main characters are women that are just starting to figure out life and what they want when they come to reside in the attic room of Palazzo Brancaccio. Isabelle, a niece of the Princess Brancaccio who orchestrated the creation of the Palazzo Brancaccio, was sent from New York by her mother who wants her to make a good match. Isabelle is on the outskirts of the family and sees how the world is changing in 1896. She wants to be part of the change and longs to open a fashion atelier with her friend Sophie and is drawn to Sophie's cousin, an opera singer. But the Princess has other plans for Isabelle and those plans put Isabelle in danger? Will Isabelle survive and find the courage to stand up to her family and create the life that she really wants?

Sophie lands the internship of her dreams at the Eastern and Asian Art Museum that is housed in the Palazzo Brancaccio. A perk of the job is lodging in an attic room. The room has a wonderful view but something keeps waking her at night. Sophie is in charge of a massive exhibition and needs help, especially with the language but will her trust put her into danger? Years later Sophie returns to Rome and the Palazzo Brancaccio and needs to figure out the past of the attic room in order to move forward in her life.

What is the connection between Isabelle and Sophie? What is the significance of the attic room? Will they create the life they want?

A blending of two stories - young, American women who lived in the same room in different centuries. This book reveals the beauty of Rome within a ghostly history. There is love, friendship, and trauma. Women taking new paths, despite family pressures and uncertainty.

Well written. The story discusses certain harsh realities of life in the 1890s and shared trauma between the characters of Sophie and Isabelle. I loved the strength of friendship portrayed in the story and the perservance of the main characters.

I would like to thank NetGalley and Kimberly Sullivan for an ARC copy.

Sophie Nouri encounters paranormal activity in a room once lived in by a former royalty a decade before.

Sophie returns to Rome reluctantly after 12 years to give a speech at the Palazzo Brancaccio. In 20026, Sophie obtains a position a the National Museum of Oriental Art which allows her to live in Rome. She is given a room and experiences strange noises that are not the result of leaky pipes or creaky floorboards.
Isabelle lives with her aunt, Princess Elizabeth Hickson Field Brancaccio in 1986. Her aspirations of change in clothing and artistic expression often puts her at odds with her aunt. Elizabeth's choice of a husband for Isabelle leads to tragic events.
An intern is assigned to Sophie to help with obtaining artifacts to help with language barriers since Sophie doesn't speak Italian. Sophie seeks help from a medium after many restless nights. As the mystery begins to unravel, Sofie learns that Isabelle's link to the room traces back to 1897 where she suffered a horrific event at the hands of her suitor.

Rome's Last Noble Place incorporates three time periods: 1896, 2006 and 2018. Kimberly Sullivan grips your attention at the very beginning with Sophie's less than happy response of being in Rome after 12 years away. Isabelle tries to do what tradition dictates while also changing with the times. The various places of Rome and San Gregorio Sassola provide a nice visual to the traditions of Italian royalty.

The struggle that Isabelle faces in running her own clothing shop with her friend shows how far women have come. Sullivan weaves an intriguing story of two women connected by a traumatic experience separated by time. I recommend this book.

I enjoyed that this book showed the two perspectives of the women in a different century. I was engaged with the story and getting to know the characters in this story. Kimberly Sullivan has a great writing style and it worked in this setting.

A captivating epic, time traveling story from Kimberly Sullivan. Split between Sophie and Isabelle, between present day and the late 19th Century, we are able to dig into the mystery of the woman who once lived in the attic....

It's a beautiful sort of story, that takes the reader to another world. Sometimes these are the types of books are needed, to be able to check out and get away from the psychological thrillers of murders and kidnappings and just get away to Italy for a little mystery.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this book.

I really enjoyed reading this story and it took me a while to read too, keeping me entranced the whole time. It is told in three different storyline’s. The earliest one being Isabelle’s in the late 1800’s. The other two were Sophie’s story, one from the early 2000’s when she was in Rome to set up an exhibition on Persian art and the other from the current time when she went back to Rome to do a presentation on Persian art. It was heartbreaking what happened to Isabelle, especially when she was just starting to get her life together and actually live the life that she wanted. I loved how she came to Sophie’s rescue when Sophie was in trouble. I wish there was a bit more about that and I would have loved for the perpetrator’s point of view as well. This story is for those who love history, a little bit of romance, friendship and some supernatural. Thank you to NetGalley for letting me read this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

An American heiress marries an Italian nobleman in 1896. She wants her niece Isabelle to do likewise, but Isabelle wants to be a costume designer. In 2018, an American woman stays in her apartment at the palace and believes she is seeing an apparition.
Appealing cover, but I didn't enjoy Isabelle’s and Sophie’s stories. The look at Rome, a hundred years apart, wasn’t enough to redeem it.

DNF - 25%

Thank you Netgalley for an e-ARC to this story. This historical fiction is a duel timeline story, set in Rome, following a woman in the late 1800s and another in the modern day who both lived within the same residence years apart. I found early on I wasn't particularly connecting with the story or characters, but wanted to continue to the quarter way mark to see if things picked up. Unfortunately for me, they did not. The concept for the plot intrigued me, but the story was very slow moving and I found a lot of the conversation between characters dragging. This might better fit a reader who has an appreciation for Rome and its architecture and history.

Oh my goodness, Kimberly Sullivan is so good at writing dual-timeline novels. Her latest, Rome’s Last Noble Palace, is a wonderful addition to her previous dual timeline novels, Dark Blue Waves and Shadows In the Apennines.

Sullivan beautifully twines the Sophie’s modern-day work as a Persian art expert curating an exhibition at the Palazzo Brancaccio with 1896 Isabelle’s overwhelming desire to design beautiful clothes for women whose outlooks were far more modern than the prevailing conservative attitudes.

I was completely swept up in Sophie’s fears and insecurities – was she knowledgeable enough, chic enough, believable enough to curate a world-class exhibition, all the while learning Italian and exploring Rome’s classical glories. Then there’s Isabelle, also a memorable character, whose poor relation status in her wealthy aunt’s noble Roman household reminds us that most women of the time had no choice but to marry, even if the prospective groom was an obnoxious cad.

Both characters prove to be far more resilient than then expected themselves to be, and it’s wonderfully satisfying to follow their personal and professional growth.

Sullivan also weaves in ghostly and mysterious threads linking Sophie and Isabelle, and several plot twists in both women’s lives, all of which were so well imagined and written that I felt I was there!

I must also add that Rome, the eternal city, and Palazzo Brancaccio, built in the late 1800’s by a wealthy American and her noble Italian husband, are additional characters providing the backdrop to Sophie and Isabelle’s lives.

Highly recommend, especially when you want to escape your everyday life to glorious Rome. Bravissima, Kimberly!

This was a charming timeslip novel set in Rome.

There were two narratives - one in the 2000s and one in the 1800s. I quickly found myself escaping into the setting, and I was interested in the storyline of both narratives. This is probably the type of book that I would pick up as a change from my crime and mystery reads.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for a free copy to review.

This is a dual timeline story set in Rome in 1896 and 2018. In 1896 we find Isabelle’ living in Rome with her aunt Elizabeth. Elizabeth is an heiress from America who married an Italian nobleman and is now a Princess. The object is to have Isabelle married to a noblemen. In 2018 we find Sophie Nouri who is back in Rome to oversee a major exhibition. Unfortunately for Sophie her memories of being in Rome years before left her with apprehension and fear. Is the palace haunted, or is this just in her mind? And why is she the only one who can sense this presence? There are many questions, but there are answers as well. For me the book was just an okay read, nothing special. My thanks to NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.