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About The Book:

It is Rosa’s ninety-fourth birthday. From the window of her granddaughter’s house on via Giampaolo in Florence, Italy, Rosa watches life as it eddies around her. The woman pushing a baby stroller, the young man parking a motorcycle, the couple walking their dog, the boisterous group of young people heading to the trattoria…none of the passersby would ever suspect that Rosa has kept a secret for over seventy years, ever since 1943, when her parents sent her and her and her brother Fernando from Florence to Perdono to escape the war. Even Rosa herself has trouble believing that she was once the young woman who joined a group of local anti-Fascist partisans headed by the town priest, but the objects she stored in a cigar box are silent witnesses of her almost forgotten past.

Now with her granddaughter threatening to get rid of a cigar box containing memories of a wartime love affair, Rosa’s secret is in danger of exposure. Rosa retrieves the box and examines the keepsakes inside one by one. As she travels back in time, bittersweet memories intrude upon the present. She recalls arriving in Perdono and meeting Paolo, a wounded Canadian soldier whom the priest assigns to her care.

The priest brings Paulo to live among the townspeople in Perdono, and when the priest finds out the Paolo is a talented artist, he asks the young man to paint a copy of a valuable icon, in order to substitute it for the real icon that has been hanging in the Perdono church for five hundred years. The priest hopes the plan will prevent an art-obsessed Fascist bishop from stealing it. As Paolo paints, a spark ignites between the two young people, but for Rosa, it is Paolo’s artistic spirit that transforms passion into a true affair of the heart.

Rosa soon understands that happiness in war is just an illusion. Death follows those closest to her: when the Germans retreat from the advancing Allies near Avellino, her partisan friend is hanged; meanwhile, in Perdono, Paulo, the priest, and Rosa’s uncle are killed by a vengeful young Fascist. Rosa is utterly crushed when she finds out that the icon is missing and, to make matters worse, Paolo is believed to have conspired with the bishop. Then months after his death, Rosa gets a posthumous letter from Paulo which confirms her fears. Paolo was not the man she thought he was.

It is not until Rosa’s return to Florence from America that Rosa reexamines the issue of Paolo’s betrayal. Rosa questions what really occurred and whether Paolo was truly involved in the icon’s disappearance. Past and present alternate as Rosa’s story unfolds, until a chance meeting between Rosa and a young Canadian woman named Lily forces Rosa to mend her view of what happened so many years ago. Sharing Paolo’s last letter with the young woman softens Rosa’s heart and allows her to resolve the mystery of the missing painting.

About the Author:

Karen De Pauw was born in Quebec, Canada, of Belgian parents who immigrated after World War Two and were an invaluable source of information and inspiration. A retired English teacher, she speaks several languages and loves to travel to Italy, the setting for her first novel.

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