This was a lovely, charming look inside a family in Italy, full of history, food, and elderly matriarchs. There's a hint of romance, past trauma, death, and the legacy of war. The perfect amount of heaviness for a summer release.

The narrator is fantastic, and the Italian. American, and Italian + Swiss accents are gorgeous to hear.

I will recommend this to many.

If you love to travel in books this one is the perfect book for you. It takes place in an almost abandoned village in Italy. I was completely transported there. The writing was beautiful and so atmospheric. It often made me hungry for Italian food and left me longing for a visit back to Italy.

Hugh is a historian who returns to his mother’s hometown where his grandmother and her three sisters still live. When he gets there a woman has arrived and claimed the cottage that his mother willed to him. This sparks an investigation that unearths a mystery and eventually long-held secrets from the past that lead Hugh to understand his difficult mother.

This is my first Dominic Smith book and it will definitely not be my last.

4.5/5 stars

Thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for an audioARC of this book.

In Return to Valetto, Dominic Smith, the bestselling author of The Last Painting of Sara de Vos, takes readers on a captivating journey to a nearly abandoned Italian village with a rich and dark history. This novel explores family secrets, betrayal, and the enduring quest for justice in a fragile world.

Valetto, once a thriving village and a stronghold of resistance during the war, now sits neglected and forgotten on a hilltop in Umbria. Only ten residents remain, including the enigmatic Serafino family—a trio of eccentric sisters and their steely centenarian mother—whose lives are about to be disrupted by the return of their nephew and historian, Hugh.

However, Hugh is not the only one to arrive in Valetto. Elisa Tomassi, a captivating and determined woman, lays claim to the cottage where Hugh spent his childhood summers. She asserts that the cottage was given to her family as gratitude by Aldo Serafino, a resistance fighter whom her own family sheltered during the war. But this revelation sets in motion a series of events that unravels a hidden secret—a betrayal, a disappearance, and a heinous act of violence that has haunted Valetto for generations.

Dominic Smith skillfully weaves together past and present, gradually uncovering the dark underbelly of Valetto's history. The narrative unfolds as a page-turning excavation, drawing readers deeper into the secrets and complexities of the Serafino family and the village itself. Smith's vivid descriptions breathe life into the crumbling village, immersing readers in its atmosphere and creating a sense of place that is both haunting and evocative.

Return to Valetto is not just a tale of historical intrigue; it is a deeply human story that explores themes of love, understanding, and the pursuit of justice across time and generations. Smith's characters are complex and compelling, each carrying their own burdens and secrets.

For fans of authors such as Amor Towles, Anthony Doerr, and Jess Walter, Return to Valetto is a must-read. It is a thought-provoking and beautifully crafted novel that explores the lasting impact of history on individuals and communities, and the power of love and understanding to bridge the gaps that time creates. Dominic Smith's storytelling prowess shines through, making this book a compelling and memorable journey into the shadows of the past.

A wonderful tale of an American man who has inherited a cottage in his mother's small Italian village that has been challenged by a woman who claims to have saved the patriarch's life in WW2 and was gifted the cottage as a result. Hugh has returned to live among his aunts and grandmother while they try to see if this claim has legal merit and uncover what happened to his grandfather, who never returned home after the war.

The book tackled themes of complicity, secrecy, and definitions of home and roots. The style was straightforward with one point of view (Hugh) which made for a very comforting read. I enjoyed it very much.

I listened to the audio, via Netgalley, thanks to the publisher in exchange for an honest review. The narration was terrific.

Italy is one of my favorite places and after reading “Return to Valetto” it is clear that Dominic Smith loves it for the same reasons I do: it possesses a lengthy and tumultuous history and in contemporary Italy there is often a tension between the past and present, especially when the less-savory aspects of the past need to be dealt with. This is the second book I’ve read this month that focuses on a nearly abandoned Italian town where inhabitants and visitors are forced to confront the lingering effects of WWII in Fascist Italy. While “Return to Valetto” is a markedly different story than the other it is interesting how these ideas can shape a wide variety of tales. Here, historian Hugh arrives from Michigan to spend a 6 month sabbatical with his grandmother and great aunts in their crumbing Umbrian villa, in a town where only 10 people still live. Almost immediately he learns of a story he never heard, about his family’s efforts to house children during the war, and a resolution to the story of his long-missing grandfather, who left near the end of the war and was never again heard from…until a woman shows up to tell them what happened, and that he left her family a cottage on their property. The story that follows investigates conflict, loss, trauma, and grief spread over a half century. The novel is beautifully written, very poignant, often witty, and gorgeous in descriptions of the land, the food, and the people. There are many unexpected turns in this story and I found it wonderfully resolved. The audiobook is perfectly narrated by Edoardo Ballerini. I highly recommend this book, especially to those who love Italy. Thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the opportunity to review this audiobook.

This is the story of a family, those who left the Italian village after WW2 and a few who stayed in the mostly abandoned village. I think people who have traveled to small villages in Italy might get more absorbed in the story than I did. It was a good audiobook but I just didn't feel a connection with the family or its members.

3.5 stars. Hugh decides to return to his ancestral Italian home, the dying town of Valetto in Umbria. While visiting with his grandmother and aunts, he learns that a stranger named Elisa has taken up residence in his deceased mother's cottage. Worse, she refuses to leave, insisting that Hugh's grandfather left the cottage to her family in his last letter. As Hugh and Elisa investigate the past and the events leading up to the gifting of the cottage, they will unbury secrets that tie their families together irrevocably.

This is a beautifully written novel, lush in imagery and prose. I really enjoyed the characters, especially Hugh's aunts, and I found myself invested in their stories. I was a little let down by the lack of historical setting in this book, I expected more "flashback" scenes I suppose, but most of the story takes place in the present. Overall though, this is a lovely book with an interesting plot, and I recommend it to fans of literary fiction with a historic bent.

Thank you to Dominic Smith, FSG Books, Macmillan Audio, and NetGalley for my advance audio copy.

Steeped in centuries of history sits a medieval villa in the small village of Valetto. Behind the villa is a little cottage where Hugh, nephew and grandson to the remaining family in the villa, has returned to live and conduct research. Upon his return he finds that he is not the only person laying claim to the cottage. Elisa Tomassi has arrived with a letter stating the cottage had been passed down to her family from the patriarch in return for harboring him during WWII.

The audio version of this book is really quite lovely. Descriptions come alive with the pronunciations in Italian that allow the reader to feel a part of this sleepy village in Umbria. With centuries in existence there are also secrets harbored within; the most recent still impacting the Serafino family. The food, culture, and history were presented in wonderfully vibrant detail.

The story progresses a bit slowly for me, especially in the beginning with character development. I did grow to enjoy Hugh, but did not form a connection with Elisa. She was much too aloof and reserved with her emotions. Any burgeoning attachment between the two main characters felt forced and unauthentic.

I did enjoy the historical accuracy and focus on partisan fighters supporting the Allies in WWII. The Serafino’s rich family history from three parts of the globe was also incredibly fascinating.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.
If you are looking for something quick, then this is not for you. But if you enjoy the slow development and descriptive words then you will enjoy this book.
I very much enjoyed it. Well thought out and written. Excellent reading by the narrator.

Giving all the due credit to the writer Dominic Smith, I would like to also give praise to the amazing narration of Edoardo Ballerini who elevates the story and gives it an irresistible dimension of an impressionist painting.
I would highly recommend to experience this novel in the audio version.

Highly enjoyable novel but be aware, this is not character or plot driven. The beauty of Return To Valetto lies in the skill of the writer to evoke life like images of the scenery and immerse the reader within the story itself. This book will make you want to visit some remote places in Italy, meet the locals and share an enjoyable meal complete with some prosciutto and the Prosecco.

But don't be fooled, under this dreamy, impressionist images lie a deeper message. One that asks questions about grief and trauma and hints at how traumatic experiences can shape the entire lives for the victims and their families. How do we heal? How do we continue living with grief? Does moral code during wartime change? Unfortunately, the novel kinda only skimms those deeper aspects and becomes a bit of a Hallmark movie.

As strong as the imagery of the novel is, character development and the historical background are weak. In fact, any character development is starkly lacking. How I would have loved to have the widow sisters and Milo fleshed out.

As far as the historical events in which the novel is supposed to be rooted in, the author merely glosses over the history and simply name drops events. This happens to be yet another Australian writer to have a very casual relationship with the historical events of WW2 on the European continent.
Granted, Italy's presence in WW2 was more complex than any other European country. Starting as a fascist state under the rule of Mussolini, getting divided between the German and Allied forces at the beginning of WW2, and finally siding with the Allies.
But surely laying down the major points of how historical developments played into the plot of this novel would have given it dimension, wouldn't it.

Instead all I have is questions and doubts. Who are the 'refugee children' and why does the author call them 'refugees'? I think it is mentioned somewhere they are the children if Italian families from the North which would suggest Nazi occupied area of Italy at that time. Not certain.
By July 1943, when the Allies landed in Sicily, Mussolini was arrested and the fascism in Italy fell. What is this convoluted story of Aldo then? Why does he have to run and hide? And why doesn't he ever come back? This is where the writing is quite sloppy and the storyline doesn't hold at all.

What really stands out are the multitudes of mentions of food items, many of them really lengthy, but a complete lack of character development or any substantial proof of research devoted to the history of Italy during WW2.

The strengths of this novel are really strong however its weaknesses are profound. For those reasons I think this book's reception will end up being polarizing.

Secrets and memories dominate this slow-paced novel by Dominic Smith. Smith paints beautiful scenes of rural Italy, the Italy of “abandoned” towns and villages. The characters who are still living in Valetto, a town reachable only by footbridge and of a small and still declining population, are mired in the past, burdened by their actions, their lack of actions, and their unwillingness to change. Enter Hugh Fisher, son of the youngest now-deceased sister of the family, a professor who specializes in the history of Italy’s abandoned towns, and a widower of three years who is unable to move past his grief. The plot, during which secrets are revealed and a perpetrator is denounced, moves along slowly. It holds few secrets, including the ending. Return to Valetto is a perfectly fine read, but it holds nothing really special. 3.5 stars rounded up to 4.