Last Train from Liguria

I have such mixed feelings about this book. I found the start a bit slow going, but somewhere around the half-way mark I got really interested and was glad I hadn't stopped. I enjoyed the details of this little Italian town before everything changed. The last quarter I could barely put it down. Once I had finished I was haunted by the events and Alec's situation. I wish the ending had made things a bit clearer. There were a lot of hints, but I think I wanted more explanation and tying up of loose ends. Like Anna, I had questions remaining.

It is the mid-1930s and Bella’s father sends her to Mussolini’s Italy to become a nanny to a young boy. Among growing anti-Semitism and political uncertainty, Bella grows to love the boy and his Jewish family, but is forced to flee as the threat of war grows ever stronger and life becomes increasingly difficult for Italy’s Jewish population. Insert extreme peril here!

The book was mostly written from Bella’s perspective, with brief interludes from Edward at the beginning, and then more from Bella’s granddaughter Anna towards the end. Edward himself was a very interesting figure and I would have liked to have heard more from him, especially as the plot thickened and approached the bit with all the peril. I sensed Bella’s show more attachment to him, but it was hard to get a grip on his thoughts about her, and what else was happening in his head. He has an interesting back story and I thought there was a lot of room for Hickey to explore that a bit more than she did.

I thought this book was going to be great. I’m into peril and disaster and Holocaust Studies. Unfortunately, Christine Dwyer Hickey let me down by writing Bella as an irritatingly anachronistic Victorian lady, prone to fainting fits and other stereotypically ‘womanly’ vices. I found myself just wanting her to shut up, lock herself away in a darkened room with her smelling salts, and let somebody else tell the story. I admit this is a harsh attitude to adopt towards a fictional character but it drove me to distraction. The parts written from Anna’s perspective seemed a little superfluous, although it was an interesting attempt to portray a character digging up a relative’s darkest secrets from the past.

The quality of the writing was the redeeming feature of this. It made me want to hop on a train seventy years ago and get myself down to Italy. I would probably read more from this author, as long as she promised not to produce another bellyache like Bella. show less

This novel is currently available for just 99p on kindle - quite a bargin. I must say I enjoyed it immensely. Well written with a lightish touch, I was hooked from page 1.

Christine Dwyer Hickey's characters are realistic and flawed, Edward haunted by a dark past, secretive, an occasional drinker, Bella a thirty something spinster with an eating disorder. Young Alec the child Bella cares for and comes to love, is an unusual boy, probably what today we may recognise as having Asbergers syndrome. For five years the life these three people have at the Villa Lami - the summer home of Alec's Jewish mother - is quiet, Alec has no friends aside from the sisters who visit the area each September and to whom he writes in the interim. Edward lives show more in the mews behind the house, coming to teach Alec music each day and Bella shares the main house with Alec and Elida the housekeeper. They rarely see Signora Lami - who later remarries - but sometimes have their peace shattered by the obnoxious "American cousins" But in 1938 the new "race laws" of Mussolini cast a long and terrible shadow over their world. After weeks of fear and indecision, Bella and Edward are asked to undertake a dangerous but potentially life saving journey.

Alongside the story of Bella and Edward, we have that of Anna in 1990's Dublin. Mid- thirties her life is spiraling out of control, the only family she has is her grandmother - Nonnie - hospitalised following a stroke and unable to communicate. Anna begins to discover that she doesn't know much about her grandmother's life, and following a revelation of one of the doctors, Anna tries to discover who the woman who raised her really was.

An engrossing read, thoroughly enjoyable. show less

Bella is sent to Italy to be tutor to Alec, whose mother is Jewish. She arrives to a very complicated household set-up - and the tightening of Fascism in Italy, with all that entails.
This is the story of her developing relationship with Alec, and his beloved Maestro Edward, culminating in being on the last train from Liguria.
It's an interesting book, well set in it's historical setting, though slightly complicated at times!
One small niggle is the use of Italian in the text, that is not translated - why bother?!

This is the first of Hickey's books that I've read. The story is told by 3 different people. Bella goes to Liguria to take care of a young boy; at the villa in Bordighera, there is an Irishman who teaches the boy piano and acts as a companion to the child. As time goes on, Hitler's power and menace becomes more apparent, as does that of Mussolini. The boy's mother is Jewish, meaning only danger for the child (despite his Catholic upbringing). Bella and Edward are asked to take the child and his baby sister to England and safety. It's a moving story, intelligently written and with a great sense of place.

I really enjoyed this book right up until the end. i supposed my ordered mind that likes to know all the ends are tied up was disappointed but I felt the book fizzled out. Maybe it was the author's intention to leave us hanging and not to know what happened; after all, in the war lots of people just disappeared. However, I think I would like to have known a bit more. The idea of writing the book from 3 different points of view was ok but unnecessary I think. Overall, good read but ending disappointing.

I found this a nice book.
There's a couple of reasons why it is not a WOW, like I expected it to be.
First of all I was a bit disappointed by the story itself. It was quite slow. In iteslef, there's nothing wrong with that, but only when the book / the story got to an end the pace went up for a while. At least I could feel the tension that took hold of the main characters.

Then I missed the story of Bella now. I know thather granddaughter takes over her role (more or less), but I still think it is a shame that we lose track of her after she arrives in England and despite the search of her granddaughter, the events like they took place during the war were not uncovered.
I feel that somehow the story did not really do justice to the whole show more picture, to the life of Bella, Edward and all the other characters that played bigger and smaller roles in the book.

I did not expect a happy ending, a 'they lived long and happily ever after'. But to let Alec and Edwardjust go 'off at the side of the stage' and not mention them again, not even let there story be traceable for Anna who's interested in her grandma and in what happened during that time, I think that's a misssed opportunity.

The book was not difficult to read. It took me a while, because I just wasn't really that grabbed by it. show less