A Thread of Grace

I'm not quite finished it yet but so glad I bought this, multilayered, cultural, historical, romantic it's got the lot. As with all really good books I'm desperate to know what happens next but will be sad when it's over!

I had not read or listened to any of this novelist's work before I downloaded this novel, which I chose because I enjoy the narration of Cassandra Campbell. Of course, I was not disappointed by the narration: nor by the novel. The plot line you can read elsewhere, but it taught me much I did not know about the German-Italian Axis of WWII, as well as the geography of Northern Italy and Judaism!

Novels which inform as well as tell a story are always welcome. This is also a deeply-moving novel about the separation and mistreatment of Jewish families, of the bravery and courage of Italians who chose to shelter them and those who betrayed them, of the Italian partisan resistance, and of all the best and worst qualities war can bring out in humans. Although I thought I knew quite a bit about the Final Solution devised by Hitler for Europe's Jews, and anyone else the Nazis thought unworthy of living, this novel showed there was much I still did not know about its horrors, and it is at times a very harrowing, even distressing, novel. The author, rightly, does not spare the listener the horrors of war and there is often no happy ending for some of the characters the listener comes to like and admire. The meaning of the title is not revealed until near the end, and gives a glimmer of reason for optimism. I would highly recommend this novel to anyone who is interested in learning more about the levels to which human qualities like compassion, kindness, bravery and selflessness can reach and, conversely, the human capacity for intolerance, ignorance, cruelty and selfishness. It certainly made me want to explore more of this author's work.