Ciao Bella
A Novel
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4.0 • 1 Rating
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
For Graziella, the quiet, cultured life she lived in Venice with her musician husband, Ugo, was everything she could have hoped for. But when Italy allied itself with Nazi Germany in 1940, her world changed forever. Ugo, trading in his violin for a gun, joined the Resistance, while Graziella was forced to seek refuge at his family's farm in the nearby Euganean Hills. "Just until the war is over," Ugo had promised, but it has been months now since the Nazis retreated, and no one has seen him since.
With Ugo gone, it seems as if she will be trapped forever on this remote farm with her lost husband's difficult family. So when an American soldier named Frank is stranded on the mountain, Graziella embraces this unexpected chance at being happy again. But as tempting as it is to leave behind this war-torn country and her painful memories for a new life in America, can she go without learning her husband's fate?
With quiet grace and humor, Ciao Bella explores the possibilities of love and redemption in the wake of war, showing that some of the hardest decisions come only after the fighting has stopped.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In the follow-up to their duo debut, The Sidewalk Artist, Buonaguro and Kirk follow Graziella Nevicato, a small-town Venetian woman who has all but given up hope that her husband Ugo will return from WWII. Though death in battle is a great honor-even for the four sisters he leaves behind, forced to plan his funeral after a seven-month absence-his wife, born Grace Forrest in Toronto, feels marooned among people who have never fully accepted her. That's when Frank, an American with a broken-down motorcycle, appears at her gates. Frank, unlike Grace, is quickly adopted by the town-Grace's father-in-law even mistakes him for his own son-and gives Grace a reason to hope for love and a normal life again. As both a grieving widow and a fish out of water, Grace is an affecting character with well-articulated values; unfortunately, Frank proves little more than a cipher, rendering a late-breaking plot twist inert.
