Mention World War and I will pick up the book automatically. It’s one of my favourite subjects in historical fiction, add this with Mandy Robotham and I was sold. I really loved her debut ‘Woman at War’. I wanted to see if a book set in Venice, Italy would make for an interesting change, as it’s so often from the French perspective. I’m quite a fan of dual timelines as long as they add something to the story - for the most part I’m not sure that this happened during Luisa’s 2017 chapters. These chapters often disrupted the flow of the book and I think without so many of them, I would have finished this a lot faster than I did.

Stella Jilani a member of the Resistance in Venice, Italy, who’s working within Nazi Headquarters in order to pass on information to the resistance. The tension behind the words is something I really felt during these chapters of the book and never knowing if she would be found by the suspicious commander and face the dire consequences. Often WW2 fiction is centred on the atrocities against the jews and although there is a brief mention of torture, the author chooses not to focus on this a refreshing change I thought. The author really does the research for her books and I really appreciate this.

Overall I really loved reading this but I do wish it had been longer. I can’t say too much without spoilers. Pick this up if you love historical fiction, tension, gorgeous scene setting and you want to root for a character until the bitter end!!! Like I did with Stella!!