Oct 29, 2021

The Girl From Venice by Martin Cruz Smith

 From my bookshelves:


The Girl from Venice by Martin Cruz Smith, October 2016, Simon Schuster

Genre: WWII historical fiction, romance

The setting is Venice during the time of Mussolini in WWII, the German occupation of Italy during and just after the war, with the various partisans and their politics. Holding all this together is a love story between a simple fisherman and a girl he found floating in the lagoon, feigning death for her safety.

I learned a lot more about Italy during the war and the role of Il Duce, who changed sides during the war and who was shot by partisans at the end.

Book beginning:

Without a moon, small islands disappeared and Venice sank into the dark. Stars, however, were so brilliant that Cenzo felt drawn to them, even as mud oozed between his toes. The faint report of church bells carried over the lagoon, from farms drifted the smell of manure, and once or twice he caught the tremolo of a German gunboat plowing the water.  

Page 56:

"The SS is raiding hospitals. It makes no sense,"  Cenzo said. 


Would you read on? 

Memes: Book Beginning at Rose City Reader

The Friday 56. Grab a book, turn to page 56 or 56% of your eReader. Find any sentence that grabs you. Post it, and add to the Linky at Freda's Voice



5 comments:

  1. Sounds really good, and it's good to have more WWII historical novels on Italy.
    Mine is also a historical novel/bio, set in France: https://francebooktours.com/2021/10/26/katherines-wish-first-chapter-first-paragraph-book-beginnings/
    Do you like it? Fee free to request your copy and review it in your own time.
    You can also enter the giveaway

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  2. I am not sure if I would read on or not, I would need more information, LOL. I am very picky with my historical fiction because they are hit or miss for me.

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  3. I read the SS and was like, nope, but I bet it's a great read! I like that cover too! Happy Halloween weekend!

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