The Garden of Angels by David Hewson is a powerful read

The Garden of Angels is the latest release from David Hewson. A powerful and gripping novel set during the second world war in Nazi-occupied Venice.

David Hewson is a former journalist with The Times, The Sunday Times and the Independent. He is the author of more than twenty-five novels, including his Rome-based Nic Costa series which has been published in fifteen languages, and his Amsterdam-based series featuring detective Pieter Vos. He has also written three acclaimed adaptations of the Danish TV series, The Killing. The Garden of Angels is sure to be another success for David.

The Palazzo Colombina is home to the Uccello family: three generations of men, trapped together in the dusty palace on Venice’s Grand Canal. Awkward fifteen-year-old Nico. His distant, business-focused father. And his beloved grandfather, Paolo. Paolo is dying. But before he passes, he has secrets he’s waited his whole life to share.

When a Jewish classmate is attacked by bullies, Nico just watches – earning him a week’s suspension and a typed, yellowing manuscript from his frail Nonno Paolo. A history lesson, his grandfather says. A secret he must keep from his father. A tale of blood and madness . . .

Nico is transported back to the Venice of 1943, an occupied city seething under its Nazi overlords, and to the defining moment of his grandfather’s life: when Paolo’s support for a murdered Jewish woman brings him into the sights of the city’s underground resistance. Hooked and unsettled, Nico can’t stop reading – but he soon wonders if he ever knew his beloved grandfather at all.

There is just something about The Garden of Angels that draws you in and grips hold of you. A story that wraps it’s tension filled words around you and makes you feel everything as if you are witnessing it first hand and not merely reading it. It’s a grandfather teaching his grandson vital lessons, that the past must not be forgotten and is something we should learn from.

What makes the The Garden of Angels a really special read is not just the clear research the author has done on the subject but his clear love for Venice, which permeates every page of the story, with glorious descriptions of the city. This a story with many layers and lessons and one that will linger with you for a long time,

You can get a copy here.

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