A triple timeline saga by Sarah Steele and it’s told from the two main female characters points of view and I had no trouble following it and it wasn't at all confusing or overdone.

1938: Europe is on the brink of anther world war, when a reputable London art dealer and his assistant travel to Italy, and Villa Clara in Tuscany. Painter and art restorer Bruce Cato, is worried a painting he’s recently bought could be damaged or seized, and he gives it to them to take back to London, and he has no idea the couple’s train will be stopped at the border and their cases searched and the suspected masterpiece will go missing.

1963: London's parties and nightclubs are packed with girls dancing in miniskirts and some people think it’s indecent. The East End underworld is still busy dealing in all things dodgy and including stolen goods and art. Staying at a Ludlow Garden’s boarding house for ladies at the time is Margot, Joan, Linda and Hillary and the owner Leonora Birch is about to be sued for slander and risks losing everything.

1985: Phoebe has found memories of her spending her holidays in Tuscany staying with her uncle Bruce, his housekeeper Angelina, Marco and their son Stefano. Phoebe now runs the Cato Museum of Artifice in London with her best friend Tilly, it houses her uncle’s collection of art and reproductions and it’s not making a profit. Bruce sadly passes away, he leaves his rundown villa to Phoebe and he sends her and occasionally Stefano on a treasure hunt, with a series of signs that they have to find and uncover and to solve a half a century old mystery.

Phoebe is taken on a journey from London to Spain and Tuscany, to find information about Leonora and her son Laurence and ex lodgers Margot, Joan, Linda, Hillary, and the offices of a well-known London art dealer and critic, and she visits museums, scrolls through microfilm in libraries and art sales databases and looking for any clues about a lost painting by famous Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer and it's links to her uncle Bruce.

I received a copy of The Last Letters from Villa Clara by Sarah Steele from NetGalley and Headline in exchange for an honest review and I have been a huge fan of hers since 2020 when I read Missing Pieces of Nancy Moon.

A well written and fascinating narrative about love and loss, courage and betrayal, the past and secrets, art and reproductions, cheats, liars and philanders. Five stars from me and I recommend this novel for lovers of fiction with a strong focus on art and plucky and determined women.

I do love a good Historical Fiction and a wartime fiction. Set over three periods in time this story follows in a search for a secret from the past A secret that will help Phoebe Cato in her life and her future. This is certainly a wow of a read and one I thoroughly enjoyed. It kept me reading and I loved the depth the way it was like being on a treasure hunt to find and solve a mystery.

I love the way this book is written, love the mystery contained withing and I love the characters. This book is interesting, insightful, suspenseful and most of all captivatingly wonderful.

Thank you NetGalley and Headline for giving me the opportunity to read and review this book.

Wow wow wow. This was a fabulous story. No idea how to review it. You followed certain people going back and forward in time. Starting just before the Second World War. You have the underworld of the 60’s , forged art, some lovely love story’s and a great mystery was finally solved . As for the ending so clever and not what I expected . One of those books you can’t put down and think about when you are not reading. Definitely an author I want to read more of . Read it. One of my books of 2024