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A sweeping and romantic novel about love, loss, and conflict in an occupied Italian town during World War II.
Trapped in Tuscany as war rages along the Gothic Line, Vittoria Guidi doesn't understand where her allegiances should lie. With her Scots-Italian father or Facsist mother? With Mussolini, or her King? With the life she wants, or is told to live?
As Germans occupy the mountains round Barga, and US Buffalo soldiers draw near, loyalties are tested and families torn apart. Frank Chapel, a young, black soldier fighting for a country that refuses him the vote, is unlike anyone Vita has met. In the chaos, they find each other--but can their growing love defy prejudice and war?
The Sound of the Hours is an all-consuming tale of romance and loss. It is at once an intimate and tender portrait of first love and a sweeping evocation of an extraordinary, devastating moment in history.
"Campbell writes with lyricism and emotion in portraying her characters' thoughts and emotions, and her story is expertly plotted. Fans of rich historicals will be totally immersed." - Publishers Weekly
"[T]he love story, though familiar in form, becomes irresistible, especially in its late, poetic, heroic blaze of selflessness. For fans of indomitable heroines and love in the time of conflict, here's a stirring new addition to the genre." - Kirkus Reviews
This information about The Sound of the Hours was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Karen Campbell is a graduate of Glasgow University's renowned Creative Writing Masters program, and author of Rise, The Twilight Time, After the Fire, Shadowplay, Proof of Life, and This Is Where I Am, which was a BBC Radio 4 Book at Bedtime. A former police officer, and council PR, Karen Campbell won the Best New Scottish Writer Award in 2009. She lives in Galloway, Scotland.
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