This story drew me in more and more as I kept reading, and I especially enjoyed Nonno Paolo’s story during the German occupation of Venice as told to his grandson through a series of written notes that he handed over one at a time from his hospital bed.

Nico, the grandson, has recently been suspended from school for a playground ruckus in which he stood back and allowed the school bully to attack another schoolboy. Nonno Paolo is furious that Nico did nothing and just allowed the bullying to go ahead and has second thoughts about handing his story over to Nico as a result, but is determined that Nico’s father is not the right person to read the contents of those envelopes. Persuaded by Nico to let him read the notes, Nonno Paolo hands them over and waits for his grandson to return to visit before continuing the process, checking how his story is coming across to the teenager but without giving away any details of what is to come.

Nico gets drawn into the story completely, learning how the Germans began rounding up Jews as Mussolini effectively became Hitler’s Italian puppet. The story deals with villagers who help the Germans, with clergy who refuse to do so, and with the harsh conditions people are forced to live in as the Germans enjoy the best of everything.

Nonno Paolo, barely an adult at the time, has recently lost his parents, both being shot by Germans as they sought new clients for their weaving business. His father’s last encounter left them with a job that has to be completed on a strict deadline, but now Paolo only has himself and Chiara to complete the delicate work required. To add to the tension, the delivery destination of the finished products leaves them in no doubt that the items are to be used as part of a German glorification effort.

Faced with what seems like an impossible task, he is then asked to hide two Resistance Jews – siblings, one of whom is injured – who are being hunted by the Germans. What follows is the struggle to get the job done (else face the dire consequences), and to keep the brother and sister hidden, which is no easy task when the sister has vengeance against the Germans in mind. Paolo is forced to grow up very quickly and he finds himself questioning himself and his developing friendships.

This is a hugely satisfying mystery, combining historical detail with almost a coming-of-age story for both Paolo and Nico. The question is raised about how soon history is forgotten and how easily people can be drawn into making the same mistakes. There is a magnificent twist and a poignant ending. Highly recommended to readers who enjoy historical fiction with an added mystery. It made a refreshing change to read a WWII story set in Italy, and in particular in Venice, and the author’s description of the city verged on poetic at times as he brought it to life in both the past and the present.

At the start of The Garden of Angels, fifteen-year-old Nico Uccello has been suspended from school for a week after watching bullies attack a Jewish classmate. He reluctantly goes to visit his ailing grandfather, Nonno Paolo in hospital, wishing he could be elsewhere instead. However, his thoughts of a day on the beach at the Lido, chasing girls or pursuing his photography hobby begin to be usurped by the letters his grandfather says are a story he has been saving for only him.
These letters allow the novel's dual time frame to shift between 1999 and 1943 as Nico reads about the events that will determine the then eighteen-year-old Paolo's whole life. As Nico is transported to the uncertain, dangerous days of Mussolini's Italy and Nazi Occupation, David Hewson's intimate descriptions of the city are unsettlingly vivid. Venetians have perhaps been able to carry on more normally than other parts of the country so far but there is change in the air and the labyrinthine streets and waterways provide an atmospheric backdrop to the increasingly tense story.
The young Paolo has recently been orphaned and is struggling to continue his family's weaving business. It's a chance moment that changes everything when he happens to witness a murdered Jewish woman being pulled from the canal. From here, his fate appears to be sealed as he is approached by the local priest, who has a request. When he agrees to shelter two wanted Partisans - Jewish brother and sister, Vanni and Mika Artom - the stage is set for dramatic revelations that change everything Nico thought he knew about his grandfather.
Although The Garden of Angels is an affecting portrait of Venetian life under Occupation, it is also a tender character study and a coming-of-age tale that finds the young Paolo recognising his hermit-like existence is perhaps not just due to the Uccello family being considered outsiders. The tentative relationship that develops between Paolo and Vanni is achingly poignant, not least for the reaction it induces in Nico. As they work together on the old weaving looms, desperate to fulfil an important order, the beauty of the velvet they produce is soured by its meaning, and though Paolo is finally able to accept who he is, others are quick to remind him that it's not just Jews who are being rounded-up by the Nazis.
Nico is far more forgiving of Mika, although her behaviour is more openly reckless and there is the suggestion that she thrives on the adrenaline and bloodshed, although whether that is entirely fair is debatable. One of the most interesting aspects of The Garden of Angels is its awareness of the human condition. There are few outwardly evil characters here; even Oberg, the city's Hauptscharführer, is a man you sense is not entirely at ease with his position. The friendship between local priest, Garzone and Jewish doctor, Diamante allows for a few moments of hope that humanity and understanding must prevail but still, the weight of history bears down on the two men who acknowledge their mistakes even as others may call them heroes.
It's former police officer, Luca Alberti, who now openly collaborates with the Crucchi invaders who is perhaps the most intriguing character, however. Understandably viewed with contempt by many Venetians, as the novel progresses we begin to question whether his motivations are entirely self-serving or if he wasn't quite the villain that he will be remembered as. It's ultimately left to each reader to decide for themselves but he is a striking reminder that history is made by ordinary people who are rarely fully good or bad.
Back in 1999, Nico realises that few people want to talk about the war, preferring to consign it to the past and the latter part of the book finds him attempting to come to terms with Paolo's shocking disclosures. Although the tension in the novel comes from the dramatic, melancholic wartime chapters, it's the conclusion which I found to be the most moving. Set years later, and with Brexit and the concurrent move towards right-wing totalitarianism across much of Europe casting an ominous shadow of racism and intolerance once more, Nico finally comprehends why Paolo gave him the letters. It moved me to tears and as much as I can and do recommend it for its superb sense of time and place, the excellent characterisation and taut, thrilling plot, it's the necessary reminder of what human beings are capable of which make The Garden of Angels such a compelling, memorable read. Very highly recommended.

I have a little confession to make. Although I have a few of David’s books on my ‘to be read’ mountain, I haven’t actually read one yet or I hadn’t until now. Anybody who knows me, knows that not only am I a book geek but I am also a history nerd with a special interest in the Second World War. So you can imagine why the synopsis of ‘The Garden Of Angels’ appealed to me. I was certain that I would enjoy it and I must be psychic because that is exactly what happened but more about that in a bit.
I must be honest and say that it took me a little while to get into this story but when I got into the story, that was it and I was away. I had to read this book in bursts because things like life got in the way. Any bit of spare time I had was given over to reading just another page or just another chapter and so on. It was as if the book had developed a hold over me and it was a hold that I wasn’t willing to break. I just couldn’t turn the pages quick enough as I became desperate to know how the story was going to conclude.
‘The Garden Angels’ is extremely well written. The author certainly knows how to grab your attention from the start and draw you into what proves to be a compelling read. I love the way in which he manages to bring Second World War Venice to life. Until they invent a time machine that can take you back to that particular era, reading realistic books such as this one are going to be the nearest thing you can get to actually being there yourself. I felt as though I was part of the story myself and that’s thanks to David’s very realistic and vivid storytelling. I found ‘The Garden Of Angels’ to be a gripping read that really did take on an emotional journey through a family’s history.
In short, I thoroughly enjoyed reading ‘The Garden Of Angels ‘and I would recommend it to other readers. I will certainly be reading more of David’s work in the future. The score on the Ginger Book Geek board is a very well deserved 4* out of 5*.

r/suggestmeabook: I want to go to Nazi-occupied Venice and see it through the eyes of a young man grappling with his identity.

David Hewson has created a taut snapshot of a few days in Nazi-occupied Venice through the eyes of a young weaver and those whose stories intersect his own. The frame story is set in Venice of 1999, but the main action is in Venice of 1943, when 18-year-old Paolo finds himself confronted with the world outside his hidden retreat set in the garden of a long-abandoned palazzo. His neighbors thought the isolation was because he was gay, a fact Paolo has mostly stayed unaware of, knowing that his family was also considered outsiders by the insular Venetians.

Paolo must confront the basic question raised by the Nazi occupation: Does he stand aside, and hope the storm passes him, or does he act, whether to collude with the Germans to help himself out of the poverty the war has brought or to resist them? It’s a question most of the book’s non-Jewish characters ask themselves at some point. Paolo’s moment comes at the insistence of the parish priest Filippo Garzone, who believes that inaction is not a choice.

I haven’t been reading many WWII era books of late, but I made an exception for this one because it is set in a part of the war I know less about, Italy after the invasion of Allied troops, which helped split the country in half between the southern royalist government and the northern Mussolini one, which was, effectively, a puppet of Hitler. This sobering book gave a lovely introduction to the people and geography of Venice. Hewson’s pride of elegant and measured, giving the story the respect it deserves.

The framing works quite well, as Nico provides a counterpoint to his grandfather’s story. No one in the 1990s wants to talk about the war, preferring to boil it down to its barest essence, so Nico is left on his own to puzzle out how the veracity of his grandfather’s account. Not surprisingly, Nico is unnerved by the idea of his grandfather’s sexual identity being something other than completely heterosexual. It also helps build the tension for the main story, as Paolo insists that Nico keep it to himself, that he’s not to share it with his father.

Hewson manages to avoid creating characters of unrelenting good or evil, allowing us to see that all of them are human, making choices that are good or evil instead. The text highlights how well-meaning people can drift into a totalitarian state, which is part of the enduring fascination with the Third Reich: how do ordinary people end up committing the atrocity of the Holocaust? He also does a good job of presenting the pressures the Germans (which the Venetians call the Crucchi) put on the inhabitants of the country they occupy, and how those pressures warp people.

The character who best exemplifies the grays of the story is Luca Alberti, a former police officer turned liaison with the Nazis. Alberti is hard to get a grasp on, as he lies to himself as much as to anyone else. He’s somehow likable despite his alignment with the Crucchi, although the Venetians generally view him with contempt. Perhaps his motives are more than self-serving, but each reader will have to render judgment.

The Garden of Angels is an absorbing tale, both for its imagining of wartime Venice and the themes it raises of how to deal with oppression in the present and with memories of the past.

I was drawn to this book partly by its subject matter but also by its setting. I’ve been lucky enough to visit Venice on a couple of occasions, although I can’t claim the intimate knowledge of the city the author clearly possesses. I’ll admit that, because of its unique location, it hadn’t occurred to me that Venice would have been occupied by the Nazis during the Second World War. Therefore, this was an aspect of the novel I found especially intriguing.

The story of the wartime experiences of Nico’s grandfather, Paolo Uccello, and his fellow Venetians is revealed in instalments to Nico, by way of a series of letters. A little confusingly Paolo’s recollections are related in the third person, as if he was an observer rather than a participant, and include scenes and conversations to which he was not a party. Leaving that aside, the story Paolo tells is one of fear, betrayal, collaboration and wartime atrocities but also of courage.

As Nico learns more about Paolo’s experiences, he wanders the streets of Venice visiting – and photographing – some of the locations mentioned by his grandfather, such as the building that housed the SS headquarters and the site of the Jewish ghetto. He is struck by the seeming unawareness of present day visitors to the terrible events that took place in those same places fifty years before. Seeing a group of children playing football at one site, he has to stop himself shouting ‘Don’t you know what happened here? Can’t you feel the traces of all that memory?’. As it happens, the Venetians who lived through that time, including the family’s housekeeper, seem equally unwilling to talk about what went on during the occupation. Nico’s wanderings through the city give him a growing sense of past and present eliding. ‘More and more I felt I was walking through two cities at the same time. The Venice I’d grown up in. The different, darker, violent city that Nonno Paolo had known when he wasn’t much older than me.’

I liked the way his grandfather’s story makes Nico reflect on how war can make people behave. ‘That was one of the lessons he was trying to teach me: evil wasn’t special. There was no need for extraordinary villains with scars, and wicked, dark glints in their eyes. It was ordinary, mundane, a part of the city, a lurking virus within us all.’ A good example in the book of the ‘ordinary monsters’ is the character Luca Alberti, a Venetian policeman who finds himself collaborating with the Nazis. There are plenty of other memorable characters too such as Catholic priest, Filippo Garzone, and Aldo Diamante, appointed by the Nazis as leader of the Jewish community in Venice, who becomes faced with an impossible dilemma.

The book displays the author’s impressive knowledge of Venice, especially the ‘off-the-beaten track’ areas rarely visited by tourists. I loved the imaginative ways Venice, ‘the city on the water’, was described, including as ‘a precious gilded prison’ and ‘the louche old lady of the lagoon’. Not only did I learn a lot about the history of Venice and Italian politics of the period but also about the process of weaving a kind of velvet known as soprarizzo using a Jacquard loom.

The Garden of Angels is both an intriguing wartime story and a great advertisement for the wonderful city of Venice. It’s a trip to put on your bucket list. In the meantime, why not visit in literary form by adding The Garden of Angels to your TBR pile.

15 year old Nico lives with his (almost always absent) father and his grandfather in a crumbling Palazzo on the grand Canal in Venice. They all belong to a family of luxury weavers When his nonno Paolo is taken to the hospital with a terminal illness Nico visits him almost daily.
His nonno gives him envelopes containing parts of a manuscript that tells about his experiences during the war.

Slowly Nico, and the reader with him, gets sucked into the heartbreaking story of an orphaned young men who shelters two Jewish partisans during the second World War and their fight against the Nazi's.

Like in all his books by books the author paints a vivid portrait of the time and place the book is set in and of the main characters. I love all David's books but I think this is one of his best books so far.
Really loved it, including the unexpected turn in the plot towards the and of the book.
I heartily recommend the book to everyone who loves stories about Italy and/or set during the second World War.

I want to thank Netgalley, Severn House Publishers and the author for providing me with an ARC of this marvellous book.

The Garden of Angels was just too boring for me.. I’m sure it is. a great book, but just not for me. Wasn’t able to get into it.

My thanks to Canongate Books Severn House for an eARC via NetGalley of ‘The Garden of Angels’ by David Hewson in exchange for an honest review.

Hewson’s latest stand-alone novel is set in Venice. In the summer of 1999, fifteen-year-old Nico’s beloved grandfather, Paolo, is dying. The family are renowned Italian fabric weavers, the House of Uccello.

When Nico fails to act when a Jewish classmate is attacked by bullies, he is suspended for a week. During this period Nono Paolo presents Nico with a typed, yellowing manuscript, describing it as a history lesson. However, he cautions Nico to keep what he reads secret from his father.

This proved a powerful tale linked to the persecution of the Jewish community in Venice as well as the activities of the Venetian underground resistance. The narrative moves between 1999 and what happened to his grandfather in Nazi-occupied Venice in 1943. The final section shifts to 2019 as Nico returns to Venice and uncovers the final secrets of his family.

I have been an avid reader of Hewson’s novels for years and while this is different to his crime fiction, it still contains those qualities that I admire in his writing: close attention to detail in terms of settings and historical aspects, strong characterisations, and a compelling story.

Overall, a powerful work of historical fiction that moved me deeply and highlighted aspects of WWII in Italy that I was previously unaware of. In his Author’s Note Hewson advises that although its characters are fictional, the novel took some inspiration from events following the German occupation of Venice.

Highly recommended.

In my humble opinion, The Garden of Angels is a brilliant novel. I thought it was a bit hard to get into, but I am glad I kept reading as the book just kept getting better. As a tourist, I saw a Venice that hid its history. Of course, it was all right in front of me had I not been distracted by the city's charms. Author David Hewson now has me wishing I had visited historical sites, or learned about the sites I did visit without knowing their past. His stories of the Nazi horrors in Venice are gripping. He is very good at detailing the main personalities, and the two partisans in the main story are very believable. Paolo, the grandfather telling the story, is the one who has the real goods to tell, and he is a sympathetic bearer of bad news Perhaps I can circumvent spoiling anything further by just saying what a shame it is that in novels of the 40's and 50's the gay character, no matter how good or how likable, has to die. Can't say if that happens here!
Thanks, NetGalley, for the ARC.

Hewson has written a very powerful novel about Venice during the Nazi occupation. Although I have visited Venice several times, I'd never thought about the WWII history of the city. Well plotted, well developed characters. I thoroughly enjoyed The Garden of Angels.

I liked this book more and more as I kept reading. The story was both a mystery that took place during the German occupation of Venice during World War II and a modern mystery about who Nico's grandfather, Nonno Paolo, really was and why he was sharing his story with 15-year-old Nico and no one else. The writing was awkward at times, but because Nonno wrote those pages and was not a writer, the author employed an unpolished style by design.

The book alternates between the present, where Nico's beloved Nonno is dying, and the past, when Nonno is a young man during the war years when the Germans are beginning to round up Jews and anyone who helps them. Nonno, an innocent, delicate weaver, has just lost his parents, and he gets talked into hiding two Jewish partisans for a few days. What follows are events that force Nonno to grow up quickly and to take a stand, despite fear and war atrocities.

This mystery and sometimes thriller is satisfying both in the past and present. One is left with an important question: If over time, historians sanitize war, what should humans remember to keep from repeating the same mistakes?

Talk about red herrings there's a lot that goes on in this book, although it isn't hard to figure out what happens. This is about a young boy talking to his grandfather in the hospital about 2019 and his grandfathers writing about World War II, and his take on what happened. The boy always hating the character of one of the two people that Nonno Paolo Uccello was to save. David really describes Venice and all it's alley's and scruffy bars with a real passion. Just what you want to read about and WWII. He has a way with words that leaves you with wonder. Just read the book if you want to be suffused with was is fiction. I liked it so much as to give Hewson 5 stars.

I was granted complimentary access to the eARC of The Garden of Angels by David Hewson through the publisher, Canongate Books - Severn House, via NetGalley is exchange for an honest review. Although I ended up requested and being granted access to the audiobook, I was sent a widget for the ebook in order to participate in the upcoming blog tour for this title with Rachel's Random Resources in March 2021. Thank you to all involved in giving me this opportunity! This has not swayed my opinion. My thoughts are my own and my review is honest.

The Garden of Angels is a story split between the present and the past. In the present, Nico Uccello has been suspended from school for a week for watching classmates attack a Jewish newcomer. When he confesses this to his dying grandfather, his grandfather gives him his own story, written down in parts, to read and keep secret until he is finished. In the past (grandfather Paolo's memoir), young Paolo lives in Nazi-occupied Italy and finds himself entangled in the underground Jewish resistance.

The former history student in me jumped at the chance to review this title! 20th Century wartime history was my focus, but I didn't get much from the Italian perspective in my studies. Even though this is fiction, it's clearly steeped in historical fact. That alone made this an enjoyable read to me. Add in the suspense aspect of not knowing how Paolo's story will resolve or what Nico will do with this new knowledge and I couldn't put it down!

The majority of this book set in the past reads like a novelized autobiography of the sort my history professors would have assigned to undergrads to understand the mindset of the people we were studying, like when we read Hilary's The First and the Last. The portions set in the present beautifully illustrate a teenage boy's breakthrough from complacently racist and passive to informed, righteous, and ready to stand up for the rights of others. I was particularly struck by the way the elders in his life responded when he started asking for other memories to go alongside his grandfather's and how not all of them were as willing. He didn't realize what sort of pain and fear he was asking them to uncover, and their sharp responses made him realize how little respect he was giving them and their past.

Overall the story this book tells is beautifully heartbreaking, or heartbreakingly beautiful. It has a thriller element, and though it isn't overly fast-paced, there are no dull moments. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who loves history, historical fiction, or heartfelt life lesson stories.