On tour with The Coffee Pot Book Club — The Girl from Bologna (Girls from the Italian Resistance) by Siobhan Daiko @siobhandaiko @maryanneyarde

 

The Girl from Bologna 
(Girls from the Italian Resistance)
By Siobhan Daiko

Bologna, Italy, 1944, and the streets are crawling with German soldiers. Nineteen-year-old Leila Venturi is shocked into joining the Resistance after her beloved best friend Rebecca, the daughter of a prominent Jewish businessman, is ruthlessly deported to a concentration camp.

In February 1981, exchange student Rhiannon Hughes arrives in Bologna to study at the university. There, she rents a room from Leila, who is now middle-aged and infirm. Leila’s nephew, Gianluca, offers to show Rhiannon around but Leila warns her off him.

Soon Rhiannon finds herself being drawn into a web of intrigue. What is Gianluca’s interest in a far-right group? And how is the nefarious head of this group connected to Leila? As dark secrets emerge from the past, Rhiannon is faced with a terrible choice. Will she take her courage into both hands and risk everything?

An evocative, compelling read, “The Girl from Bologna” is a story of love lost, daring exploits, and heart wrenching redemption.

By this point, I don’t need to be tempted by pretty covers, or the prospect of reading a book set in Italy for me to agree to read it. I just need to see this author’s name to get overly excited about reading the book. I impatiently awaited the arrival of my copy, and absolutely could not wait to get started.

Leila has decided to take an exchange student, Rhiannon, into her home, while she dictates her memoirs and records them. Little does she know, the things she talks about, what she experienced during the 1940s in Bologna, are still massively important to what is happening in Italy. She might think that she is simply making sure her story does not end up lost and forgotten, but there is so much more to it when the past resurfaces. 

Rhiannon only really came to Italy to improve her Italian speaking, but somehow, school is given second priority when things start to happen. Meeting Marie, another exchange student, Rhiannon thinks she has found a friend, but Marie acts strangely, and some of the things she does and says make no sense. On top of that, Leila’s nephew, Gianluca, seems to take an interest in Marie. He is a freelance reporter, and the interest he takes in her seems to be to do with that, rather than in the sense of a relationship. 

I loved the way of showing the past in this book. The past and the present don’t have separate chapters, but you find out about the past through Leila’s recordings, just as Gianluca and, eventually, Rhiannon do. By keeping Leila’s past and present in the same chapters, it really ties in the idea that ‘the past is never past’. The past shouldn’t simply be resigned to being ‘history’, because everything that happened is still always having an effect on everything that is happening. Leila’s past helps Gianluca and Rhiannon understand what is happening, for there is a mystery afoot, and while it starts and ends with Marie, she is not the only person involved.

If you have read any of my reviews for the other books I’ve read by this author, you’ll know that I have a lifelong dream of travelling to Italy, but I have young children and I haven’t been able to start a holiday fund because I keep spending all my money on books. When I told my husband that I had another book by this author, and then re-explained the plot of the previous two books, for he evidently had no idea what author I was talking about, he resigned himself to the fact that we would be eating ‘Italian’ food for the next few days, while I read it. Unfortunately for me, this book goes into wonderful detail about the food Leila makes, and Rhiannon is introduced to. My usual ‘Italian’ food is frozen pizza, or cheesy pasta, but reading about all the amazing food made me want to try piadine, I wanted all the fancy-sounding pasta dishes, I wanted plates of cold meat and salad after my meal… while I haven’t had any of this yet, date night with my husband is rapidly approaching, and he has already agreed that we will be going to an Italian restaurant! I can’t wait!

While I may spend ages gushing about the food, and my desire to go to Italy, there are some heartbreaking moments in this book. Leila spent time with a group of Gappisti, and they worked to try and free prisoners. She does end up picking up a gun as well, and fights for her country, but, in the line of fire, she loses people close to her, and she herself suffers through being captive, and subject to violent questioning. Definitely be prepared for some harrowing scenes.

Once again, this author has rekindled my love for Italian fiction. I haven’t actually read much of it, in general, apart from when a new book comes out in this series and I absolutely have to read it. If you like historical fiction, and you like Italy, this series is the one for you. This has to be one of my favourite authors of all time!

I highly recommend you grab a copy of this book, which you can do over on Amazon And guess what... if you have #KindleUnlimited this novel is free to read. 

Siobhan Daiko

Siobhan Daiko is a British historical fiction author. A lover of all things Italian, she lives in the Veneto region of northern Italy with her husband, a Havanese dog and a rescued cat. After a life of romance and adventure in Hong Kong, Australia and the UK, Siobhan now spends her time indulging her love of writing and enjoying her life near Venice.

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