“Daughters of Tuscany” is now available!!!
I’m so excited to tell you about my new release, Daughters of Tuscany. It’s set between 1943 and 1945 in Val d’Orcia, a beautiful, relatively unknown part of southern Tuscany, in the province of Siena. The valley is named after the river which flows through it. The dusty clay knolls, known as crete sinesi, and the verdant woodlands, have now become a UNESCO world heritage site.
It was after I’d read Iris Origo’s published diary, War in Val d’Orcia, that I decided to set my next World War II historical novel there. I found the events described to be truly inspirational, and started imagining how fictional characters would have lived through those events.
After the Allies liberated Rome in June 1944, they advanced on the German Gothic Line north of Florence. On they way, they passed through Tuscany and catapulted the Tuscan people into the front line.
The novelis told from the points of view of two women. Rosa is the daughter of a tenant farmer on Marchese Ginori’s estate. A group of British prisoners of war has been helping her father, but when Italy signs an armistice with the Allies, Germany occupies Tuscany and the POWs need to escape.
After her initial dislike of the man (her husband died fighting the Allies in North Africa and she won’t let him anywhere near her three-year old daughter) Rosa becomes close to Tom, an alluring Scotsman. When he is forced into hiding, she will do everything she can to ensure he survives.
The marchese’s daughter, Emma, has grown up with Marco, the son of her father’s steward. She considers Marco to be her best friend and offers to courier messages to him when he takes charge of a band of partisans carrying out actions against the Germans and Italian Fascists.
Before too long, the Nazi-fascists are riding roughshod over the area, seizing food, animals, and property. When their entire community comes under threat, both women find themselves thrown together to try to save the people they love.
