The Garden of Angels – 5 Star Book Review

Welcome to one of the March 6th stops on the blog tour for The Garden of Angels by David Hewson, organized by Rachel’s Random Resources. Be sure to follow the rest of the tour for more features and reviews!

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About the Book

The Garden of Angels
by David Hewson

Published 6 April 2021
Severn House Publishers

Print/eBook Page Count: 320
Audio Length: 13 hours 22 minutes
Narrated by: Richard Armitage

Genre: Historical Fiction
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At his beloved Nonno Paolo’s deathbed, fifteen-year-old Nico receives a gift that will change his life forever: a yellowing manuscript which tells the haunting, twisty tale of what really happened to his grandfather in Nazi-occupied Venice in 1943.

The Palazzo Colombina is home to the Uccello family: three generations of men, trapped together in the dusty palace on Venice’s Grand Canal. Awkward fifteen-year-old Nico. His distant, business-focused father. And his beloved grandfather, Paolo. Paolo is dying. But before he passes, he has secrets he’s waited his whole life to share.

When a Jewish classmate is attacked by bullies, Nico just watches – earning him a week’s suspension and a typed, yellowing manuscript from his frail Nonno Paolo. A history lesson, his grandfather says. A secret he must keep from his father. A tale of blood and madness . . .

Nico is transported back to the Venice of 1943, an occupied city seething under its Nazi overlords, and to the defining moment of his grandfather’s life: when Paolo’s support for a murdered Jewish woman brings him into the sights of the city’s underground resistance. Hooked and unsettled, Nico can’t stop reading – but he soon wonders if he ever knew his beloved grandfather at all.

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My Review

My Rating: 5 Stars
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Believe it or not, I actually received two ARCs of this book: The first an eARC via NetGalley widget supplied to participant in this tour with Rachel’s Random Resources, and the second an audio ARC, also through NetGalley, that I happened to request before being confirmed for the tour and was then approved for anyway. I listened to the audio ARC because listening fit better into my schedule, but I very much appreciate both ARCs. Thank you to all involved in giving me this opportunity! This has not swayed my opinion. My thoughts are my own and my review is honest.

The Garden of Angels is a story split between the present and the past. In the present, Nico Uccello has been suspended from school for a week for watching classmates attack a Jewish newcomer. When he confesses this to his dying grandfather, his grandfather gives him his own story, written down in parts, to read and keep secret until he is finished. In the past (grandfather Paolo’s memoir), young Paolo lives in Nazi-occupied Italy and finds himself entangled in the underground Jewish resistance.

The former history student in me jumped at the chance to review this title! 20th Century wartime history was my focus, but I didn’t get much from the Italian perspective in my studies. Even though this is fiction, it’s clearly steeped in historical fact. That alone made this an enjoyable read to me. Add in the suspense aspect of not knowing how Paolo’s story will resolve or what Nico will do with this new knowledge and I couldn’t put it down!

The majority of this book set in the past reads like a novelized autobiography of the sort my history professors would have assigned to undergrads to understand the mindset of the people we were studying, like when we read Hilary’s The First and the Last. The portions set in the present beautifully illustrate a teenage boy’s breakthrough from complacently racist and passive to informed, righteous, and ready to stand up for the rights of others. I was particularly struck by the way the elders in his life responded when he started asking for other memories to go alongside his grandfather’s and how not all of them were as willing. He didn’t realize what sort of pain and fear he was asking them to uncover, and their sharp responses made him realize how little respect he was giving them and their past.

Overall the story this book tells is beautifully heartbreaking, or heartbreakingly beautiful. It has a thriller element, and though it isn’t overly fast-paced, there are no dull moments. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who loves history, historical fiction, or heartfelt life lesson stories.

Richard Armitage’s narration is excellent! He does such a great job making sure all major characters sound distinctly different, and handles accents and Italian names well. I appreciate that he hasn’t tried to pitch up female voices to the point of sounding comical, as some male narrators tend to do. His own lower voice is so pleasant to listen to, I wouldn’t want any squeaky falsetto interruptions to the buttery flow of everything else. I will absolutely look for Richard Armitage listed as the narrator when browsing titles in the future.

About the Author

David Hewson is a former journalist with The Times, The Sunday Times and the Independent. He is the author of more than twenty-five novels, including his Rome-based Nic Costa series which has been published in fifteen languages, and his Amsterdam-based series featuring detective Pieter Vos. He has also written three acclaimed adaptations of the Danish TV series, The Killing. He lives near Canterbury in Kent.

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