An atmospheric tale of twin sisters scratching together a life in the midst of WWII on a deserted Orkney Isle.
When plans are made to house a thousand Italian prisoners of war on the island, life will soon be very different for these sisters.
A historical fiction tale based on real events but heavily fictionalised.
The characters are so likeable you cannot help but root for them and the imagery so beautifully written.
Knowing a little about the Islands I could visualise it perfectly and was instantly transported to this remote place
The writing is lyrical and drew me in and the twist at the end was a real surprise.
Thoroughly enjoyable read.
Thank you Penguin Michael Joseph for this copy to read and review.

An extremely atmospheric read. All the characters were clearly drawn. There was a lot of sadness in the story. I think the prologue was a rather devious means of contriving confusion into the story.

This book is so beautifully written. It is lyrical in its prose as it weaves you seamlessly into the tales of folklore, superstitions and the heart of the enigmatic Orkney Islands. I felt like I was there once again but in 1942 amidst the locals and the Italian prisoners of war. This book is so evocative, the author really brings the story to life. It was a story I knew a little bit about and although I know this is a work of fiction I now feel like I understand it that bit better. This story is about love between sisters, hope and the human spirit. A really fantastic read for all historical fiction fans.

A lovely and moving war story of a little known part of the war full of twists and a lovely love story at the heart of it.

I visited Orkney and the Italian chapel a few years ago, so this story set on the island appealed to me. The story is about the Italian prisoners who were brought to the island to create defences and also built a small but beautiful chapel. The story follows twin orphaned sisters and one of the prisoners. One of the sisters falls in love with the prisoner, and the other sister has suffered at the hands of an abusive partner from the island. It’s a story with a twist, which is to be expected with twins. I struggled with the pacing of the story and felt it could tell more in places. I also felt more characterisation was required as it skipped out a lot to finish the story.

This is a beautiful story, wild and beautiful, like the Island where it is set. Location is the heart of this story. Set in Orkney during world war 2, we are about as far from the front-line as you can get, and still be in Europe. But Orkney is not an island isolated from the war. War has brought more than its fair share of tragedy to this remote corner of the world, but also, war has profoundly changed the landscape of the islands. The scuttled ships of the German fleet still litter the coast in this story, as they do to this day. Italian prisoners labour under harsh conditions to build the barriers that will link these islands and change the flow of the tides around them. The author captures the sprit of the place, and of the time perfectly.
This is the story of two sisters, twins, who cut themselves off from their community, on a remote island. The twins have suffered, on the island they are safe from their tormentors. The war changes everything, and shatters there isolation. When the Italian prisoners camped on their island start to build their own church there is a glimmer of hope that something beautiful may arise amidst the loss and destruction of the war. This book is full of legend and mystery too, there is a sense that the author truly knows this place.
The first few chapters of this book were quite bleak. The sisters lives are harsh, their past tragic, the landscape is relentlessly bleak, the prisoners are treated poorly and an early flash forward tells of disaster to come. I am glad that I did not give up, the second half of the book is warm and more positive. The ending is an unexpected gem.
This is beautifully written, it really brings the landscape to life. This is a wonderful read.
The ornate Italian chapel, built by prisoners of war, is real place. The author weaves her fictional tale of love, loss and creation around this extraordinary place. It is very well done.

This story is set in war time - however, it’s not a war story, it’s a story of love and it’s beautiful. Set in the Orkney Islands there was a feeling of cold and desolation about the place until the Italian prisoners arrived and Cezare and Dorothy met. This story is very moving in the way it portrays how love can overcome even the most difficult of obstacles, in the worst of times.
The author has written a beautiful story and captured that feeling of despair when things go wrong and the deep joy of two people in love - however difficult it might be for them to be together.
The ending was both sad and beautiful. I loved it.

It took me a while to get into this book; the writing style takes a bit of getting used to. As the story is set in the Orkneys there are plenty of ancient beliefs woven through the story. In addition, twins are involved, which makes for a certain amount of confusion. It is hard to believe that women endured the living conditions that Con and Dot put up with on Selkie Holm - it is not clear how much artistic license is taken with this aspect of the story. There are certainly liberties taken with history (all explained in the copious notes) but the essential facts are true, even though the timeline is adjusted. Some terrible things happened during the war and this book highlights some of them.

Thanks to Net Galley and the publishers for the opportunity to review this book.

One word - fantastic!

This author is a genius quite frankly. she's taken a story that is true and woven a magical tale from it mixed of fact and fiction. I had no idea this chapel on orkney was real and it is I want to go there now after reading this book. If even half is true, it's quite something.

recommended! I also have to say that the cover is stunning.

With grateful thanks to NetGalley for the opportunity to review this novel. A wonderful novel; interesting, enjoyable and totally engrossing. I loved it!

World War II in the Orkney Islands and the arrival of Italian Prisoners of War to build the barrier defences against invasion from the German Army. It features twin sisters, Dorothy and Connie who have made their home in a bothy on the small island of Selkie Holm, when shortly after the prisoners arrive. After rescuing an Italian POW from drowning, and volunteering in the camp’s infirmary, Dot forms a strong attachment to this prisoner, Caesar, from which love blossoms. The story unfolds with suffering, loss and destruction as a consequence of war.

There are lots of snippets of Orcadian folklore and it nicely mingles fact with fiction. The text flows beautifully and paints the scene perfectly, gradually drawing the reader deeper into the fable. This novel would make an excellent film - with superb characters and wonderful scenery. The author’s notes and bibliography contain salient points and are well worth reading.

A less common WW story with all the strengths of the genre. Good writing, evocative setting that is well evoked in both words and action.

When I saw the initial reviews of this book, it was likened to Captain Corelli’s Mandolin. This statement had me interested as this is story I really love. I can confirm The Metal Heart is written in similarity to Captain Corelli’s Mandolin.

Set in World War II on the Scottish island of Orkney, five hundred Italian prisoners of war are sent to work and help fortify the island from attack. What follows is a story of love and courage amongst the viciousness of the situation.

The is such a thing as the metal heart and around it a story of love. The author has beautifully captured this in her own novel. Having read and enjoyed The Glass Woman previously, I enjoyed this novel also.

Orkney felt like one of the main characters- the detail and information given so complex and dense that I felt like I could visualise it. I loved the historical facts interwoven and found this so interesting. Over this you have a story about life, love, times of hardship, and overcoming it. A brilliant book.

I really enjoyed ‘The Metal Heart’ by Caroline Lea. I knew nothing about the Italian church on Orkney; in fact I’d never heart of it. The story behind the building is told in the novel alongside the story of twin sisters and intertwined in a love story. The novel was so evocative that although I have never visited Orkney I feel I know it.

Dorothy and Con move to Selkie Holm following an ‘incident’ on the main island. When the Prisoners of War are brought there, they are initially very reticent, but Dorothy overcomes that when she meets Cesare.
With an initial slow start to the story, in the last 2/3 of the book I felt more involved in the book and the characters.

I visited the Italian Chapel on Orkney many years ago and it is a remarkable sight. I was interested to learn more about the background to it and the building of the Churchill barriers and so I was pleased when I was offered a review copy of this book by the publisher. It is fairly well written. I enjoyed the movement between the voices of the main characters - identical twins Con and Dorothy and Cesare, the Italian POW who paints the interior of the chapel and with whom Dorothy falls in love. Much of the story is well paced and exciting at times, particularly towards the end, and the main characters are fairly believable.

It was disappointing to read in the Afterword that so much of the story was pure fiction rather than fictionalised history, however. I expected the love story to be fictional but cannot understand why actual historical facts needed to be changed, including the name of the bombed ship from Royal Oak to Royal Elm. The artist who actually painted the chapel interior is ousted in favour of Cesare. If I were him, I’d be most irked by this! I now find myself wondering just how much of it is based on fact. I expect changes to be made for dramatic purposes but some of the changes seem quite unnecessary.

Pedant’s Corner: the author spent some time on Orkney researching for this book but it was clear to me it had been written by an Englishwoman rather than a Scot. The Orcadian accent is very different but it is still Scottish. Dorothy is called Dorothea by Cesare. She hears this sounding like ‘door’ at the beginning and ‘tear’ at the end. Scots pronounce their Rs so ‘tear’ is very wrong and we pronounce ‘door’ differently also. Secondly, she has the twins’ parents calling them ‘bampots’ from the 1920s onwards. I strongly doubt that word was in use then. Its first appearance in literature isn’t until the 1960s. It’s also a word more associated with Glasgow and Edinburgh so I cannot imagine an Orcadian man and a woman brought up on Fair Isle in the early 20th century using it. Lastly, there is a comment that Beltane fires were not lit that summer due to the war. I cannot confirm this but I doubt they were still being lit on Orkney at that time as the Shetlanders apparently stopped lighting them in the 1870s. Beltane has been revived in more recent times but it had largely fallen away from being celebrated by the late 19th century, as far as I can gather. As always, I will be delighted to be proved wrong on any of these points as I’m really interested to know the facts.

Overall, this is a good read as long as you don’t expect to learn a great deal of the real history of the events. Fortunately, most people are not as pedantic as me!

With thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Michael Joseph UK for a review copy.

The Metal Heart is a beautifully written historical novel, a romance with hidden depths.

While the history must be taken with a pinch of salt, the story itself is heartfelt. Lea explores the trauma and tragedy of war - but also captures the resilience of the human spirit, of hope and love. The remote landscape of Orkney is deliciously Brontësque, rich with atmosphere and singed with magic. The characters feel real, their emotions palpable. While some parts are slightly overwritten (perhaps channeling a bit too much of the Brontë melodrama) there is some intricate plotting at play and the finale had me hooked.

I enjoyed this book, although there were a couple of ‘really?’ bits where I asked myself, would this really have happened? Overall though, a good read - I enjoyed the descriptions of wartime Orkney and the attitude of the locals to the Italian prisoners. Nicely written.

This book was just beautiful! It ebbed and flowed and was written from the heart! A love story like no other I’ve read, that had me praying for a happy ending.! Well done Caroline for bringing these characters to life!

I think I enjoyed this even more than The Glass Women, which I also gave 5 stars. Perhaps because this is much closer to home and more recent. I really felt the cold of the island and the isolation of the sisters. Their tragic past and their uneasy but fiercely loyal relationship was well portrayed. I hated the violence towards the prisoners and was glad to read that this didn't happen in real life - Italian prisoners really did build a chapel, but they were well treated. The chapel exists and can be visited - plenty of pictures on Google to see, it looks stunning.