A review by kaloughl
The Secret Messenger by Mandy Robotham
3.0
As a huge historical fiction fan, I was eager read this new work by Mandy Robotham and dive into Venetian history during WWII. It was a cute, succinct novel that satisfied a typical WWII historical fiction trope in a new place with a different version of the war (at least for me, I did not know that Germany occupied Venice as a headquarters).
The Stella storylines, a partisan spy who worked in the Reich Venetian office by day, wrote the anti-fascist newspaper by night, featured the most interesting characters and Stella's rises and falls during the German occupation of Venice did not disappoint. Honestly, her life exhausted me because it seemed she was constantly working: full days at the Reich office, a couple evenings at the hidden newspaper office, and the rest spent passing notes as a staffetta. Plus she had time to run secret missions back and forth from various islands, take care of her parents, and watch out for her younger brother who was also a partisan. My favorite parts of this novel was Stella's love of writing and her handy typewriter with the dropped "e". She had such passion, even if it was parsing together numerous facts into readable articles. Her love story released in chapters over the course of numerous newspaper editions became the talk of the town (again another thing she somehow found time for!) and her relationships with the men in the novel often were helped along by literary conversations and interactions.
However, what the Stella storyline excelled at - bringing this vibrantly brave woman to life - the Luisa storyline, Stella's modern day granddaughter, completely lacked. I felt that there was almost no need for a secondary timelines until about 23o pages in when Luisa finally makes her way to Venice to try to figure out the mystery behind the typewriter found in her mother's attic. Luisa's chapters were so short, we barely got to know her or her husband Jamie. We knew that Luisa had a difficult relationship with her mother and was hoping that discovering her grandmother's history would connect her to her family and Italian roots. When we finally unearthed Stella's story in the modern day chapters, Luisa's mother's bad relationship with Stella was kind of explained. It had to do with a boyfriend/baby thing alluding to a pregnancy (and perhaps abortion) and old fashioned values which, though aligns with the time, goes against the characterization of the Stella we just got to know. Also, Luisa's bad relationship with her mother was never truly explained, merely written off that the mother's fall out with Stella someone perpetrated throughout her raising of Luisa. Though there were some elements that could have really solidified the story if fleshed out more- Giulio and Paolo for one - the entire point of Luisa's perspective was to *shock* us at the end with the reveal which felt like lazy writing instead of clever planning.
All in all, this book was absolutely fine to read. It will most definitely fulfill any cravings for historical fiction or an easy read.
I won this book as part of a Goodreads giveaway.
The Stella storylines, a partisan spy who worked in the Reich Venetian office by day, wrote the anti-fascist newspaper by night, featured the most interesting characters and Stella's rises and falls during the German occupation of Venice did not disappoint. Honestly, her life exhausted me because it seemed she was constantly working: full days at the Reich office, a couple evenings at the hidden newspaper office, and the rest spent passing notes as a staffetta. Plus she had time to run secret missions back and forth from various islands, take care of her parents, and watch out for her younger brother who was also a partisan. My favorite parts of this novel was Stella's love of writing and her handy typewriter with the dropped "e". She had such passion, even if it was parsing together numerous facts into readable articles. Her love story released in chapters over the course of numerous newspaper editions became the talk of the town (again another thing she somehow found time for!) and her relationships with the men in the novel often were helped along by literary conversations and interactions.
However, what the Stella storyline excelled at - bringing this vibrantly brave woman to life - the Luisa storyline, Stella's modern day granddaughter, completely lacked. I felt that there was almost no need for a secondary timelines until about 23o pages in when Luisa finally makes her way to Venice to try to figure out the mystery behind the typewriter found in her mother's attic. Luisa's chapters were so short, we barely got to know her or her husband Jamie. We knew that Luisa had a difficult relationship with her mother and was hoping that discovering her grandmother's history would connect her to her family and Italian roots. When we finally unearthed Stella's story in the modern day chapters, Luisa's mother's bad relationship with Stella was kind of explained. It had to do with a boyfriend/baby thing alluding to a pregnancy (and perhaps abortion) and old fashioned values which, though aligns with the time, goes against the characterization of the Stella we just got to know. Also, Luisa's bad relationship with her mother was never truly explained, merely written off that the mother's fall out with Stella someone perpetrated throughout her raising of Luisa. Though there were some elements that could have really solidified the story if fleshed out more- Giulio and Paolo for one - the entire point of Luisa's perspective was to *shock* us at the end with the reveal which felt like lazy writing instead of clever planning.
All in all, this book was absolutely fine to read. It will most definitely fulfill any cravings for historical fiction or an easy read.
I won this book as part of a Goodreads giveaway.