The Tuscan Secret
Angela Petch’s romantic tale of love, war, and family takes place in Rofelle, Italy. She blends details from her personal experience as a part-time resident of Rofelle with the collected tales of locals who survived the brutality of the German invasion during WWII.
This meticulously researched love story tells the tale of Anna, a young woman struggling to understand her mother’s past. After her mother’s death, Anna inherits her journals. While Anna knew that both her mother and father experienced WWII in the Italian countryside, nothing could prepare her for the secrets she uncovers hidden in her mother’s notebooks.
Anna travels from her home in England to Rofelle and enlists the help of a handsome scholar to translate her mother’s words. As Anna begins to understand the complexity and danger of her mother’s life during and after the war, she falls in love with the Italian countryside that her mother spent a lifetime longing for as an immigrant in England.
While generous with sensory details describing the food, wine, and beauty of Tuscany, Petch’s work connects the struggles of the Italian resistance movement to the life-long struggles the resistance members faced as they built families after the war. Petch expertly captures how Anna’s parents pass down their trauma to their children, but not their stories. This novel provides an unexpected gateway for romance readers to experience a less romantic but equally satisfying view of the Italian countryside and its people.
