The Seeker of Lost Paintings by Sarah Freethy

Published on by Margaret2 Comments

Simon & Schuster UK| 11 September 2025| 400 pages| e-book| Review copy| 5*

Blurb:

Rome 1939
Arriving in Rome to work for the wealthy Montefalco family, Maddalena is homesick and alone. She finds solace – and love – in the beauty of the city, but as the war in Nazi-occupied Italy rages, she must make a devastating choice.

London, 1997
After her mother Maddalena’s death, Beatrice Fremont discovers a fragment of a painting and a letter that sends her on a hunt to Rome. Helping her is art dealer Jude Adler, who’s convinced they are looking for a lost Caravaggio. For Jude, this could be the find of a lifetime; but for Beatrice their search uncovers a shocking secret and the answer to a mystery kept hidden for years.

I’ve not read Sarah Freethy’s first novel, so I wasn’t sure what to expect from her latest book, The Seeker of Lost Paintings. I am delighted to say I loved it. It’s historical fiction set in two timelines, one in the 1940s in Italy and the other in 1997 in London and Italy. It appealed to me because of the mystery surrounding a lost Carravagio and I really enjoyed that aspect. I’ve read quite a lot of historical fiction set during the Second World War, but I don’t think I’ve read any set in Italy during the Nazi occupation before and it was this part of the story that I enjoyed the most.

The book begins with a Prologue set in Naples in 1610 with an unnamed artist as he starts a painting. Who he is and what he is painting only becomes clear later in the book. The narrative then flies forward to July 1997 and a hot day in London when Beatrice Fremont, yearning to be in Italy where both of her parents were born, is waiting for Jude Adler to arrive to value her late father’s art and photography collections. Her mother, Maddalena is seriously ill and they need to sell his collections to secure the family home.

When Jude spots a small painting, hanging on Maddalena’s bedroom wall, he is convinced he’d seen the image somewhere before. It reminds him of Caravaggio’s painting of St John the Baptist in Youth with a Ram. Caravaggio’s followers had made many copies of that painting and Jude is convinced that if it is one of those it could be worth tens of thousands. But Maddalena wants Beatrice to reunite the painting with its rightful owner. And so after Maddalena’s death, the search to find out more about the painting begins, taking Beatrice and Jude to Italy.

Back in 1939, Maddalena was working as a cook at the home of Conte Luca Montefalco, at the Villa Velare in Rome. Luca’s older brother Roberto had renounced his title and taken up Holy Orders, and is working at the Vatican where he is responsible for an art collection that must be preserved and removed from the Vatican in preparation for the impending war. It was a remarkably tense and difficult time in Italy, under Mussolini and the Fascists, and the local people suffered immensely under the Nazi occupation.

Sarah Freethy’s beautiful descriptive writing and characterisation transported me back to that period, almost as though I was there witnessing what life was like for the ordinary Italians during the war years – the dangers and privations they faced. It really is a remarkable book, drawing together the two strands of the story, both in the past and the present and ending in a satisfying conclusion.

Many thanks to the publishers, via Netgalley for my review copy and I’d love to read more of Sarah Freethy’s books.

Novellas in November 2025 – Books on Kindle

Published on by Margaret19 Comments

It’s almost time for Novellas in November, hosted by Cathy of 746 Books and Rebecca of Bookish Beck.

I’ve already listed some novellas from my physical TBR shelves and today here are some from my TBR Kindle shelves:

  1. Appointment in Arezzo: A friendship with Muriel Spark by Alan Taylor – 169 pages
  2. The Lost World by Arthur Conan Doyle – 165 pages
  3. Silent Kill: Maeve Kerrigan Book 8.6 by Jane Casey – 100 pages
  4. Murder on Thames, a Cherringham: Mystery Shorts Book by Matthew Costello, Neil Richards – 126 pages
  5. Five Six Pick Up Sticks by EJ Lamprey – 167 pages
  6. Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell – 196 pages
  7. Daisy Miller by Henry James – 69 pages
  8. The Aspern Papers by Henry James – 107 pages
  9. The Third Man and the Fallen Idol by Graham Green – 160 pages
  10. Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes: A Journey of Solitude and Reflection by Robert Louis Stevenson – 124 pages

Where would you start?

Classics Club Spin

Published on by Margaret19 Comments

Before next Sunday, 19th October, 2025 create a post that lists twenty books of your choice that remain on your Classics Club list. On that day the Classics Club will post the winning number. The challenge is to read and review whatever book falls under that number on your Spin List by the 21st December, 2025.

Here’s my list:

  1. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
  2. The Case of the Gilded Fly by Edmund Crispin
  3. Dombey and Son by Charles Dickens
  4. Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens
  5. The Lost World by Arthur Conan Doyle
  6. The Time of Angels by Iris Murdoch
  7. I’ll Never be Young Again by Daphne du Maurier
  8. The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth
  9. North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
  10. The Go Between by L P Hartley
  11. The Great Fire by Shirley Hazzard
  12. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
  13. Daisy Miller by Henry James
  14. Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee
  15. Friends and Heroes by Olivia Manning
  16. Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell
  17. Fire from Heaven by Mary Renault
  18. The Night Manager by John le Carre
  19. Maigret’s Doubts by Georges Simenon
  20. Loitering with Intent by Muriel Spark

 Which one would you like to see win?

Novellas in November 2025

Published on by Margaret17 Comments

It’s almost time for Novellas in November, hosted by Cathy of 746 Books and Rebecca of Bookish Beck. It’s now in it’s sixth year. I took part in 2020, 2021 and 2022.

There are no categories this year, although participants are invited to start the month with a My Year in Novellas retrospective looking at any novellas read since last NovNov, and finish it with a New to My TBR list based on the novellas that others have tempted them with over the course of the month.

There are also two buddy reads this year – Seascraper by Benjamin Wood and Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde. 

These are some of the novellas from my TBR shelves:

  • Women and Writing by Virginia Woolf – 198 pages
  • Loitering with Intent by Muriel Spark – 172 pages
  • The Gate of Angels by Penelope Fitzgerald – 167 pages
  • Hotel du Lac by Anita Brookner – 184 pages
  • The Case of the Canterell Codicil by PJ Fitzsimmons – 177 pages

At the moment I think I’ll start with The Case of the Canterell Codicil: the first Anty Boisjoly Mystery, described on the back cover:

Anty Boisjoly, nineteen-twenty-never Wodehousian gadabout and clubman , takes on his first case when his old Oxford chum and coxswain is facing the gallows, accused of the murder of his wealthy uncle.

Not one but two locked-room murders later, Anty’s pitting his wits and witticisms against a subversive butler, a senile footman, a single-minded detective-inspector, an irascible goat, and the eccentric conventions of the pastoral Sussex countryside to untangle a multi-layered mystery of secret bequests, ancient writs, love triangles, and revenge, and with a twist in the end that you’ll never see coming.

Where would you start?

WWW Wednesday 8 October 2025

Published on by Margaret12 Comments

WWW Wednesday is run by Taking on a World of Words.

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

I haven’t done a WWW Wednesday post since July! Where has the time gone? We’re now in October and it’s definitely Autumn – colder but stil some bright sunny days. The leaves are now falling, soon our garden will be covered by them – we have a lot of trees.

Currently I’m reading one of Donna Leon’s Commissario Brunetti novels – Blood from a Stone, which I’m thoroughly enjoying. I’m not surprised by that as I’ve enjoyed all of the Brunetti books I’ve read. He is one of my favourite detectives, maybe even the favourite.

In this one Brunetti is investigating the death of one of the vu cumprà, illegal immigrants selling fake designer handbags from sheets on the ground. He was killed one cold night near Christmas when two men entered Venice’s Campo Santo Stefano and shot him five times. The only witnesses are some American tourists.

I’m also reading Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift (1667-1745), which I think is such a strange book, definitely not a children’s book as I had thought. First published in 1726, it’s a satire on human nature and the imaginary travellers’ tale literary subgenre about Lemuel Gulliver, a ship’s surgeon who travels to four strange and distant lands. I’ve nearly finished it and I’ll write more about it in a later post.

The last book I read was West with Giraffes by Linda Rutledge, a novel based on a true story which I loved.

Description from Goodreads

Woodrow Wilson Nickel, age 105, feels his life ebbing away. But when he learns giraffes are going extinct, he finds himself recalling the unforgettable experience he cannot take to his grave.

It’s 1938. The Great Depression lingers. Hitler is threatening Europe, and world-weary Americans long for wonder. They find it in two giraffes who miraculously survive a hurricane while crossing the Atlantic. What follows is a twelve-day road trip in a custom truck to deliver Southern California’s first giraffes to the San Diego Zoo. Behind the wheel is the young Dust Bowl rowdy Woodrow. Inspired by true events, the tale weaves real-life figures with fictional ones, including the world’s first female zoo director, a crusty old man with a past, a young female photographer with a secret, and assorted reprobates as spotty as the giraffes.

What will I read next? It could be The Case of the Canterfell Codicil Anty Boisjoly Mysteries Book 1) by P.J. Fitzsimmons, a locked room mystery.

Description from Goodreads

In The Case of the Canterfell Codicil, Wodehousian gadabout and clubman Anty Boisjoly takes on his first case when his old Oxford chum and coxswain is facing the gallows, accused of the murder of his wealthy uncle. Not one but two locked-room mysteries later, Boisjoly’s pitting his wits and witticisms against a subversive butler, a senile footman, a single-minded detective-inspector, an irascible goat, and the eccentric conventions of the pastoral Sussex countryside to untangle a multi-layered mystery of secret bequests, ancient writs, love triangles, revenge, and a teasing twist in the final paragraph. 

But when the time comes to start another book it could be something completely different.

The Predicament by William Boyd

Published on by Margaret10 Comments

Viking| 4 September 2025| 272 pages| e-book| Review copy| 3*

Gabriel Dax, travel writer and accidental spy, is back in the shadows. Unable to resist the allure of his MI6 handler, Faith Green, he has returned to a life of secrets and subterfuge. Dax is sent to Guatemala under the guise of covering a tinderbox presidential election, where the ruthless decisions of the Mafia provoke pitch-black warfare in collusion with the CIA.

As political turmoil erupts, Gabriel’s reluctant involvement deepens. His escape plan leads him to West Berlin, where he uncovers a chilling realisation: there is a plot to assassinate magnetic young President John F. Kennedy. In a race against time, Gabriel must navigate deceit and danger, knowing that the stakes have never been higher . . .

My thoughts

I was really keen to read The Predicament William Boyd’s second book in his espionage trilogy about Gabriel Drax because I loved, the first book Gabriel Moon. A major strand in that book was the story of the tragedy surrounding his mother’s death when he was a young child. His subsequent separation from his older brother added to Gabriel’s disturbed state of mind and contributed to his reluctance to become a spy. In fact he was accidentally drawn into the world of espionage without making a conscious decision.

The Predicament begins in 1963, a few months after the events related in Gabriel’s Moon. However, I didn’t enjoy it as much as I thought I would because the novelty of a spy who doesn’t want to be a spy is no longer a novelty. Now, Gabriel knows he is being drawn back into the dangerous and shadowy world of espionage by his fascination/obsession with Faith Green, his MI6 handler, who effortlessly manipulates him. But is Faith beginning to show her true feelings for him, is it possible that she may even be in love with him, or is she just using sex to keep stringing him along?

It all seems a bit shallow and the characters are rather stereotypical, although it’s fast paced and easily readable. Gabriel is assigned to a joint MI6/CIA operation in Guatemala to interview Pedro Tiago an ex-priest thought to be the next elected President. When Tiago is assassinated Gabriel realises he has once again been manipulated and is in danger of losing his life. Then he is sent to Berlin to assist the CIA prevent the assassination of President Kennedy, an interesting episode that lacks tension as we know Kennedy wasn’t assassinated in Berlin.

The action does jump about, as in between these events he has meetings with Russian spies and realises he’s become a double agent and he is still having sessions with the psychoanalyst as in Gabriel’s Moon. In addition he is a successful travel writer and he continues to use his spying assignments as locations for his books, but his research seems rather superficial and he is accused of plagiarism. I felt it was all too much tongue in cheek. There are several loose ends, which I hope will be resolved in the final book.

My thanks to the publishers for a review copy via NetGalley.