Books On Tour: The Company Daughters

The Lost Village

Publication date: November 16, 2020

The Lost Village by Daniela Sacerdoti has been one of the biggest roller coaster of emotions books I can remember reading! This novel takes the reader on an emotional roller coaster that spans the full spectrum of possible emotions from sadness, joy, and heartbreak to betrayal and anger. It was a wild ride and a joy to read!

Luce, is the narrator of our story. She is in her forties and is experiencing empty nest syndrome. Her son Eli has recently gone to college and she and her husband, Ethan, have been living separately for going on three years now. Luce has lived her entire life with her Italian mother never knowing who her father was or anything about her family history. Luce's mother has always been tight lipped about her past telling Luce that some things are better left a mystery because of the heartbreak that can come from knowing the truth. Luce now being a middle aged woman with a family of her own longs to know about her Italian family and their past so she decides to take a trip to Italy to get the answers to her family mystery.

Luce has been in contact with a cousin still in Italy through some social media snooping and set up a meeting to meet her extended family in her mother's hometown village without her mother's knowledge. Mathilde, a distant cousin, meets Luce at the airport and brings her to their grandmother's home affectionately called Rosa Bianca. Upon first meeting her grandmother, Nonna Clelia, Luce is overwhelmed with love and affection for her long lost grandmother and resentful towards her mother for denying her the right to know her family. Throughout the entirety of the novel Luce is being told by Nonna the whole history of her family, from the point where Nonna met her grandfather up until the point that Angelina, Luce's mother, left for America.  Luce finds out some very troubling things about her family, for example, finding out that her grandfather was a Swedish spy during World War II and that her grandmother was a part of the resistance to the Nazis. Nonna paints a beautiful but troubled past that still leaves out the reason for Angelina's escape to America. The reader is left guessing until the last few pages of the book what exactly caused Angelina's departure, and wow what a reason! 

I thoroughly enjoyed The Lost Village. I felt myself closely relating to Luce being separated from a husband and seeing her child grow and blossom into an independent person. I felt her heartache in descriptions of a relationship that went stale between two people that meant the world to each other and the joy in watching your child grow and succeed. The suspense and story telling peppered throughout kept me interested all the way through. One really can't ever judge a book, or a person, for that matter by its cover and The Lost Village was a perfect example of this statement. The individuals in the novel you think to be the most trustworthy end up with quite a different story to tell...   

Thanks to Netgalley and Bookouture for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review. 

For purchase: The Lost Village