Rhys Bowen can surely write a book that will keep you hooked.
Excellent storytelling and character development. The plot is tightly knitted, the storytelling excellent.
HIghly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

I love dual timeline stories, and I definitely enjoyed this one. Venice setting was very charming. Writing & the characters were enjoyable. It pulls you in and take s you with characters.

Thanks a lot to NG and the publisher for this copy.

Am I a little travel deprived? YES!

“The Venice Sketchbook” will take you on a walking tour of the canals and calles of Venice, and treat you to a second-hand taste of its delights. While the WWII story of Juliet has some very tragic elements, it is clear that she has lived a full life, and when she passes on a legacy to her grandniece, it starts Carolyn on a new life.

Enjoy this while sitting in the sunshine with a sparkling glass of Prosecco!

Its my first time ready Rhys. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this amazing book. Its been a while since a book blew my mind. This book does it thoroughly.

Another book about WWII, clandestine activities, love found and denied, a time when men and women were a bit more selfless, willing to suffer to serve their country and fellow man, trying to endure through the worst personal losses. Setting this story in Venice was a huge plus as the city became perhaps the most important distraction and component. In this dual time line story I found the war years much more interesting and important than the story that evolved in 2001. The mechanism to get the reader back to the mystery worked even in its shallow framework, but was it really necessary to cast a newly divorced mother as so completely helpless?

The lead up to the ending became obvious and the neat tidy package was just a little too perfect. Wishing once again for half stars this was a 3-1/2 star read for me.Thank you NetGalley and Lake Union Publishing for a copy.

I thoroughly enjoyed this story. Dual timeline, likeable characters, wonderful setting with romance and mystery. If you love this type of story and Venice read this. It will be lovely to visit there again one day but in the meantime we have the descriptions of Venice in this book to remind us of what we are missing.

A dual time line historical fiction book, this was an easy read about secrets, mysteries and family framed by World War II and Venice, which is the best part, in these travel-restriction times.

To get a Dear John Letter via a Gossip Magazine is Cold! Caroline Grant knew she and her husband only married because of their son. However, she is still reeling from the news and the fact her son is still visiting his father in the United States a whole ocean away.
Caroline gets a bequest of keys,a sketchbook, and go to Venice. Caroline decides she wants to find out what her Great-Aunt Juliet found so enticing about Venice.

The book is written in two voices. Caroline as she unfolds her Aunts life by unlocking the keys and maybe she discovers some of her own personal secrets and dreams.

I received a free advanced copy from NetGalley and these are my willingly given thoughts and opinions.

I first discovered Rhys Bowen when I picked up a book in her cozy mystery series. I loved it so much I looked to see what else she had written and discovered she also wrote standalone, dual timeline historical fiction, mostly to do with WWII. You know I'm a big WWII fan so I was all over those books. I really loved the last one so I was anxious to see what she would come out with this year with The Venice Sketchbook.

I found this book a little slow to begin with, but that might be because I was so eager about reading this book and couldn't wait to get to the meat of the story.

The "present-day" chapters with Caroline are set in 2001 and the historical chapters with Juliette span a time frame from the late 1920s to the late 1940s (though there is a jump of about 10 years that are not covered). Juliette is Caroline's great-aunt and when she dies she leaves a box of mementos for Caroline. As Juliette has lead a typical British spinster life, the items in the box are a total mystery. In addition to the death of her great-aunt, who has been living with her grandmother for many years, Caroline is also dealing with the unpleasant business of a divorce and custody battle. So a trip to Venice to discover a life she never knew her great-aunt had seems to be just the thing to take her mind off her own troubles.

I've read all but one of Bowen's standalone novels so while I enjoyed The Venice Sketchbook, it is nowhere near my favorite. I didn't really care for Caroline. I think I would have been on a plane to the U.S. to see my son if I had been told he was traumatized by the events of 9/11 and couldn't fly to return home. Instead she flys off to Venice. I admit that is the much more romantic option. I think I would have thought better of Caroline if she went during the summer when her son was scheduled to be in the U.S. with his dad instead of as a response to her fear that his dad would never let him return. The chapters with Caroline are pretty sparse so the reader doesn't get a lot of opportunity to connect with her. Outside of her discoveries of what the keys go to, I much preferred to be in Juliette's chapters.

I really did like Juliette and I wonder if I would have liked the story better if it had been her returning to Venice after all those years to discover what happened. I loved the descriptions of Venice in the 1920s, 30s, and 40s that Juliette provided us with. Caroline's descriptions were less colorful and lively because she was there in late fall so it was just rain. Whereas Juliette enjoyed the many festivals and parties.

Overall, though, the book felt a bit too much like a cookie-cutter of the previous books for me to enjoy it as a fresh new story. I would have liked to have more of Juliette's thoughts after she returned home at the end of the war but at least we get more of her story than perhaps Caroline will ever discover. If you are looking for a pleasant read to pass the time with, then I recommend getting this book. If nothing else, it will make you want to travel to Venice and maybe satisfy slightly the travel cravings we've had to deny for the past year.

Oh, and the descriptions of food will make you hungry so make sure to have snacks handy while reading.

My review will be published at Girl Who Reads on Thursday, April 28 - https://www.girl-who-reads.com/2021/04/the-venice-sketchbook-by-rhys-bowen.html

3.5 Stars. I was really excited for this books as the timeline of Venice pre and during WWII sounded fascinating. The scenes and descriptions of Venice were absolutely beautiful, I really enjoyed those parts and felt like I was there. Juliet's story and everything that happened to her in Venice was truly amazing and at times quite sad, but unfortunately the writing fell a bit flat to me. I did enjoy the dual timelines between Juliet and her great niece Caroline, but the changes sometimes felt abrupt. Thank you to Netgalley and Lake Union Publishing for the ARC.

I can’t believe it…this is the first book I have read by prolific writer Rhys Bowen. Although I thought it somewhat fairytailish, after the last few years, maybe it was just nice to escape into a fairy tale, albeit bittersweet.

Although somewhat formulaic, I found the story gripping; I couldn’t put it down. I liked how the plot unfolded by moving forward and backward in time. As a bonus, the beautiful city of Venice is also one of the main characters….and I enjoyed revisiting some of my favorite experiences, locations, and foods.

Set in two time lines a few decades apart the story of Juliet and now her grand niece Caroline is a beautiful one. Caroline is just discovering that her marriage has fallen apart, and above all her husband in New York has no intentions it seems of sending her son back to her. On top of it all, her grand aunt Juliet dies, and on her deathbed mutters a most cryptic message for her.

Knowing that she has to follow up on this beloved Aunt's instructions, Caroline sets off on a mission to throw her Aunt's ashes in the canals of Venice and armed with three keys and no idea at all to what they belong.

The story set in 1938 Venice, just before the Nazi invasion of Europe shows the prim and proper Julet that Caroline knew to be someone else totally. Unravelling a story of passion, a child born out of wedlock, work for the British Resistance and incarceration in a Nazi camp reveal a part of Juliet that no one knew or could ever imagine. An intensely private person in England no one could ever imagine such a varied and interesting life had been spent in Europe as a young woman.

Caroline is left to follow very vague clues and this she does and finds peace for herself as well.

WWII background once again, stunning characterization, descriptive of Venice (you want to go there asap) and a lot of history very well told. A winner all around.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an eARC of this book. Wondrous characters with an interesting plot that never gets boring. One of the better books by this author. I was sad when it was over.

I love historical fiction and I generally enjoy books written about WW2. I found this book to be a little different from what I am used to however. It was interesting to see how WW2 would have looked differently if you were in an Axis powered country. I did enjoy this book but of course wish it could have ended differently for Juliet.

Thank you to NetGalley and Lake Union Publishing for the opportunity to read and review this book.

Caroline Grant is dealing with the end of her marriage and the recent death of her great-aunt and with that death she inherited some interesting items - a sketchbook, some keys and a final request. She heads to Venice to figure it all out. In the same book, in a different time period, 1938, Juliet Browning is in Venice and a chance encounter changes her life forever.

I loved how the reader knows the connection of the stories early on, but there are still things to figure out throughout the book. The clues are provided at just the right time and they kept the book moving along. When books have dual timelines, I always tend to like one over the other and with this one I loved them both equally. I fell in love with all of the characters. And then there was the character of the city of Venice. It felt like something of its own that affected the plot and I could just picture it all and maybe even inquired about a trip to Venice - hopefully in the near future!

I love Rhys Bowen. Great characters and plot and a fun historical story that takes you away from life and reality for just a moment!

1928: For her eighteenth birthday, Juliet Browning’s Aunt Hortensia treated her to a tour of Venice. She gazed at this astounding new world with wide-eyed innocence. Closely chaperoned by her prim and proper aunt, she sketched the historic sights and the people of the exotic city, and she met a boy: a handsome, exciting Italian boy named Leo. Aunt Hortensia promptly rushed her away from temptation. She never expected to see her first love again, but fate had other plans for her.
2001. Caroline Grant’s grandmother called her home to say goodbye to her Great Aunt Lettie. She was fond of the elderly lady, but knew her only as a quiet, almost reclusive woman who seldom spoke of her past. Her last words to Caroline made little sense, and the box Lettie left her containing a sketchbook and several keys just added to the mystery.
Putting the pieces together, Caroline determined that her aunt meant for her to seek answers in Venice. An artist herself, she immediately fell in love with the city. She met people who’d known her aunt as Juliet Browning, a woman whose life was almost a fairy tale, if fairy tales included great passion and greater heartbreak, wartime heroism, and selfless service to others. And Caroline met a young man, one whose family story was closely intertwined with hers.
Venice Sketchbook is a glorious love story, a romance for the ages, and a love letter to the beauty, culture and history of Venice. It celebrates the strength of the human spirit in perilous times. Rhys Bowen is the author of two award-winning series, the Molly Murphy and Her Royal Spyness mysteries, and several stellar standalones. The Venice Sketchbook is perhaps the best book she has written – so far. Highly recommended.

This dual timeline story follows the adventures – and misadventures – of two women in two separate eras but in the same exact place, La Serenissima. Venice.

Their stories are linked, not just by the city, and not just by these two women’s relationship to each other, but also to a family that influences both of their lives.

They are also both at points in their lives when they are making fresh starts – and bittersweet endings.

As we meet Caroline, her marriage is ending, and so is the life of her beloved great aunt, Lettie. Lettie and her sister, Caroline’s grandmother Winnie, raised her after the death of her own parents in their tiny country town not too far from London. Caroline loves both women, but Lettie has been both her inspiration and her rock for all of her life, and now that support is gone.

Leaving behind one final request, that Caroline go to Venice, a place that Lettie seems to have loved but that Caroline never knew was such a part of her great-aunt’s life, along with enough money for Caroline to make the trip, scatter Lettie’s ashes, and perhaps figure out what made the request so important to the dying woman that she hung on long enough to make that one last request.

So Caroline goes to Venice to learn what she can, in hopes of figuring out what compelled Lettie, and to take the opportunity to figure out where her own road will lead her next.

What she discovers, or who she discovers, is the woman her staid, upright, prim, proper and utterly respectable great-aunt Lettie used to be. A young woman named Julietta, an art student trapped in Venice when Britain declared war on Italy.

A woman who became a spy, a mother, a prisoner of war and a refugee. A woman who left behind everything she loved and everything she held dear to make a new life back in her old home. A life that seemed to be a complete rejection – or a tomb – for the woman she had once been.

A woman determined, in her last moments, that it was time for someone she loved to uncover her truth.

Escape Rating B-: World War II is a rich period for historical fiction of all types and stripes. To the point where I have three books in a row that are set during the same period, Friday’s The Consequences of Fear, this book today, and tomorrow’s The Last Bookshop in London. This is also not the only book this year to be set in World War II Italy, the other being Our Darkest Night by Jennifer Robson, which is somewhere in my virtually towering TBR pile.

All that’s to say that it feels like parts of this story have been done before, and recently, and perhaps for this reader a bit of World War II historical fiction fatigue has set in. So I found this take on that historic conflict to be a bit too much like too many things I’ve read before, in spite of the change in setting.

And as a result of that fatigue I enjoyed Caroline’s side of the story more than I did Julietta’s. I’d rather have seen Caroline actually researching Lettie’s history rather than just reading Lettie’s diary.

I think that the issues I had with Lettie/Julietta’s part of the story was that so much of what she did has been written before, and the parts of the story that were unique to her were a bit too predictable, especially her doomed romance and its results.

Let’s just say it was a VERY good thing for Caroline that Lettie was her great-aunt and not her grandmother.

One piece of Caroline’s story that I felt a great deal of resonance for was the way that it intersected with 9/11 and its aftermath, both in the portrayal of how countries outside the US both viewed the tragedy and moved on, and the way that it impacted people who were not remotely close to the event. It echoed for a while for all of us, and that was captured well.

So this is a story I’m kind of on that painful fence about. I liked Caroline a lot, I ended up seeing Julietta as both heroic and incredibly naïve at the same time, and I wanted the 21st century story more than I did the historic one. Your mileage may vary, especially if you’ve not experienced the same kind of WW2 historical fiction fatigue or you’ve not read much about that period in Italy as opposed to the more usual settings of France or Britain..

And on my other hand, I have previously enjoyed several of this author’s WW2 stories, particularly In Farleigh Field and The Victory Garden and will undoubtedly be back again the next time she returns to the period.

This book pretty much followed a formula that I have read before. Young woman (Caroline) is having trouble in her marriage and her husband leaves her for another woman. In the mean time her great aunt, Lettie, is a spinster who always seemed very strait-laced. Caroline is close to her aunt and just before she passes away from a stroke she says some very cryptic things and in her will leaves Caroline everything including a box with some sketch pads and three keys that leads her to Venice. She finds out secrets about her aunt that were never spoken of before. So I guess all in all some things were predictable but there were some surprises and I did really like the story. The characters were very likeable. The story was told from the point of view of Caroline in 2001 and Lettie from 1929 to after the war. Lettie's story took up most of the book and she was the most developed character. I am still in awe of what women did during the war to survive. Venice was almost a character in itself. I loved the descriptions of the festivals to all the saints, the gondolas and vaporetti and how routes to places were always circuitous because of the streets and getting across the canal. Near the end there seemed to be a lot more to be said but there wasn't enough book left for me and it felt like things ended abruptly. I didn't feel a sense of closure with what happened to Lettie or even to Caroline.

I would like to thank Netgalley and Lake Union with providing me a copy of this very enjoyable story.

This story is told in dual timelines, the first 1939 until the end of WWII, the second 2001. Juliet visits Venice with her Aunt, meeting a young man, Leo. She returns a few years later to study art in Venice, in 1939, as the war is becoming more of a reality. As an Englishwoman, she is at risk once the war starts. Caroline is Juliet’s niece, and has been left with a mystery to unravel in Venice. Caroline goes to Venice to find out what her Aunt Lettie wanted her to know. I liked both storylines, and although there were references to some of the tragedies of the War, the focus was more on these two women and their experiences in both heartbreak and love. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC, recommended.

This book caught my attention because it's set in Venice, during World War II. I don't read a lot of historical fiction, but I was in the mood to read something different, out of my comfort zone.

At first, I wasn’t sure if I would finish it. The first chapters were a bit confusing to me. However, as soon as Caroline arrives in Venice and starts looking for clues that reveal what her great-aunt wanted to tell her when she died, everything becomes very interesting. I couldn't stop reading. Although some parts are a little predictable, we get involved with the characters’ dramas. We want to see them happy.

I didn't fall in love with all the characters. Some of them are truly annoying. But I liked the way they were presented, becoming easily identifiable in a book with so many names.

I didn’t know this author before. I liked her writing style. I could actually picture in my head all the places she described in this story, even though I’ve never been to Venice.

* I received this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.