I received a copy of this book from the author/publishers via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

It's 1957, and Daniel Matheson is spending several months in Spain, under the dictatorship of Franco, with his American father and Spanish mother. As Daniel uses his camera to see the real side of Madrid, he also begins to know Ana - the maid in his hotel whose family have been cruelly treated by the Spanish Civil War, and Franco's regime. Daniel begins to discover the terrible and beautiful sides of Spain, but also needs to question how far he can delve into secrets, especially if they put Ana in danger.

This is a slow-burn story showing a side of Spain that's easily forgotten and also focusing on an issue of stolen children and corruption in the orphanages and the religious orders that run them that many people do not know about. Once I got to grips with the different POVs in the story (there are a few, which is definitely a style of Sepetys), I really began to enjoy the story being told and the type of Spain being shown to me.

The POVs, while a few of them, it did seem to add something to every side of Spain. There was Daniel, the tourist, Ana, the girl wanting to escape, Julia, the mother, Puri, the one who believed, and Rafa, the fighter.

I did find myself completely enthralled by the story and the deeper I got, the deeper I began to feel and fear for the characters. There was such an air of menace and violence.

I did find myself a bit disappointed in part 2 versus part 1, mostly because something happened which is just not something I like when it happens to characters.

I just really hate when characters spend so much of their lives apart and when they finally reunite in their 40s/50s, they both know they were waiting for each other all that time. I just feel sad for all that wasted time.

Things felt slightly rushed as well, which I presumed would happen as part 2 didn't start till 80% into the book. And it ended a tiny bit abruptly so I was shocked when I turned the page and that was it.

The stolen orphan storyline really interested me though it wasn't a shock - not because of the heavy hints from the start but also some of the similarities between what happened to the babies in Spain, versus Ireland around the same time. Mother and Baby Homes (or 'laundries') in Ireland were prisons and asylums for unwed mothers and/or women who were looked down upon in society, and oftentimes these women were forced to put their baby up for adoption (often to rich Americans) in the same way the Spanish babies were stolen from their families here. The laundries were also ran by religious orders - generally nuns. I definitely saw some similarities between how women and babies were treated, and the moral superiority of those running such places.