The Italian Correspondent by Belinda Alexandra

Veronica Gold is a correspondent for Vogue Magazine, living in Positano after WW2. During the war, she was a war reporter based in Italy. She witnessed some horrific things during that time and also met some very powerful people. This has left her with some post-traumatic stress to deal with.

Veronica’s ex-husband, Lyle, turns up again in Rome, and she is forced to meet up with him. They had had a child together, who sadly died aged three, and after that, they had drifted apart, both throwing themselves into their respective careers.

Veronica is writing a book about Pompeii, so she visits the site to conduct research. There she encounters Marcello, a professor of archaeology. We discover that she has met Marcello before (he was using another name), during the war, when she had a romantic tryst with him.  She falls in love with Marcello, but he is a married man, and divorce is impossible in Italy.

To complicate matters, Veronica’s ex-friend Emerald has had a relationship with Lyle. Emerald is a complicated woman who seems to be hiding more secrets. She is now divorced from a dashing and rich Count Carlo. Emerald is charged with murder and goes to prison. Veronica and Carlo think she is innocent, so they hatch a plan to get her out of prison and to a hospital instead, with the help of ex-partisan Marcello. Along the way, Carlo falls in love with Veronica, and Veronica starts to think he might be the man for her.

So, Veronica finds herself in the position of having to decide between three different men. The novel moves back and forth in time, from Italy in 1953, back to Florence in 1944, and her earlier war reporter years as we get the back stories that set the scene.

There are lots of plot twists and some daring escapes, which I won’t give away.

If you like a story that touches on historical events, with a bit of romance, espionage and mystery thrown in, then this is an enjoyable read.

Reviewer: Rachel White

HarperCollins