When a young American man turns up at the door of a Yorkshire farmhouse clutching a wartime diary that had been left in the possession of his Italian grandfather, it starts a journey of discovery for Jessica. Finding out that her grandmother had a brief fling during the war and that her grandfather is not who she believed him to be sends her on a quest to Italy to find out more.

This sounded like a great premise for a novel, but I found many of the characters rather two dimensional. I also questioned some of their motivation. The diary, whilst a catalyst to events, seems to be fitted in to the story the author wanted to write, rather than driving the story.

Overall, a pleasant but unremarkable read.

I received a free copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Life changes for Eleanor, her daughter, Mary, and her granddaughter, Jessica, when Alessandro turns up at their farm with a diary from someone called Peter Hill.

We follow Eleanor and Jessica as they travel to Siena, to get more information about Peter.

This story is told over two timelines; the 1940s and the 1990s.

Beautiful descriptive writing that made me feel as though I was in Siena with Jessica.

There were quite a few characters to try and get my head around, but that didn’t affect my enjoyment of the story.

A tale full of secrets, lies, and also love. A captivating story that I found emotional at times.

My thanks to Bookouture and NetGalley for a copy in exchange for my honest review.

This author writes with warmth and engaging perception about our relationship and understanding…..
Many thanx as always to NetGalley, the publishers and the author for allowing me to read and review this book.

A beautiful story set in present day and during wartime. It was very interesting to read about the land girls and how hard they worked. I 😍 ve dual timeline books and this one delivered on all fronts. My thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for giving me the opportunity to read this book in return for an honest review.

A perfect rainy day comfort read – a dual-timeline story interweaving threads in World War II and the 1990s, with some glorious Italian settings.

My favourite chapters were the ones focused on the character of Eleanor in the 1940s – her voice was down-to-earth, chatty, and reminiscent of AJ Pearce’s ‘Dear Mrs Bird’. Eleanor felt like a real person, and I was immediately engaged. (I actually wish the book had started there, in chapter 1, and not with the prologue.) As the story progresses, and there’s less of Eleanor, I missed her!

The story reminded me a bit of the film ‘Letters to Juliet’ (not literally in terms of plot, more the tone and gorgeous settings). I have a soft spot for that film and enjoyed this too – but if you’re looking for a hard-hitting ‘All the Light We Cannot See’ kind of World War II novel then this isn’t it. This is more rose-tinted and romantic, despite some nods to “the horrors of war”. The more modern strand of the plot is also quite dominant - so it's more women’s fiction than historical fiction. Overall, it's an enjoyable, easy read with plenty of twists and turns.

Many thanks to Bookouture and NetGalley for the advance copy.

This was an easy-to-read story, but the plot was predictable and similar to other books I have read -- a spark between to characters; one goes off to war; they lose track of each other; there's a journal that a relative finds that the soldier had purchased from the woman he had the spark with; the woman is very old in present day, but is excited to see the journal and what the soldier had written. Readers who enjoy these types of stories will undoubtedly like this book.

I loved everything about the Tuscan Diary. From the cover to the title to the writing, this book was phenomenal.

This book was just okay, it was a bit slow and cheesy, lacked a real plot and was just not very great. I think the author should have focused a little more on the plot to make it better. The writing style was good, but the characters were not really likable so that took away for me.

Thank you to NetGalley, the author, and the publisher for this complimentary ARC in exchange for an honest review!!