A review by kali
I Give It to You by Valerie Martin

5.0

This was my first Valerie Martin book and I will be keen to delve into her backlist, as I really enjoyed this story set in Tuscany (and a bit in the US). A creative writing academic spends her summers at a colleague's colleague's Villa, and over the years learns stories of the former aristocratic family and their downfall after the fascist regime. In particular, Jan is intrigued by the story of Beatrice's uncle Sandro who was murdered in the driveway of the villa, and this story and his ghost are threaded through the novel. Ghosts of stories. What is real, and what is fictionalised? Even when we receive stories from our ancestors they are partial, or reframed to shape how they became the inheritor of such stories. And what happens when we share those stories with others -- are they no longer ours, even if they are significantly remodelled and reimagined? I love the parallels drawn between property and stories here. So much of the tragedy of this family saga comes from the right to directly inherit, and the means used to control those lines of inheritance. And interlopers, who divert the course of a property's story.