Calabria is a land I knew nothing about till this novel. And what I do know is based on this sweeping saga’s depictions of this steep cliffs, lush land, and torrential downpours.
The 1960s was full of this wanting to make their mark in a changing political climate. But for a young lady like Francesca the world she seeks to help is just as dangerous as it is isolated.
The author aphas done it again. Another saga of finding yourself and your purpose within your limits.

A very detailed historical fiction novel set in 60's Italy, as Francesca tries to start a nursery school in an isolated mountain village. She's met with a lot of resistance and obstacles to getting the nursery started. Overall, interesting setting but the pacing was slow and there were so many characters and plotlines that it got convoluted.

Francesca arrives in Santa Chionia in the fall of 1960. She's a full of idealism, a young American sent to the remote Italian village to start a nursery school. In a village that floods every year, the most recent waters unearthed a skeleton and the mystery begins. We have an unidentified body, and as it turns out multiple candidates on who it could be.

The book is broken out into four parts. "Where is Leo Romeo" is part one. I couldn't get through part one. Francesca is too earnest, too naive, the villagers don't trust this American outsider, her landlady is a cipher, the village leaders are either hiding something or don't want to be bothered by her. Romeo's mother comes to her for help and Francesca obliges.

So many pages and nothing appears to happen. People dodging Francesca's questions, ridiculing her, undermining her efforts to both find Leo as well as get that nursery going. I couldn't see slogging through three more sections at this pace and did not finish.

My thanks to NetGalley and Knopf for the digital ARC.

This started out strong but lost a little steam to me. I liked the main character and was invested in the mystery of the body found at the post office. However, I think the book could have been much shorter, as some scenes and chapters felt a little meandering. The resolution was good and took me by surprise, and I enjoyed hearing about the historical setting.

I have mixed feelings on this one. It's slow for a mystery, but it's rich in detail-- fitting for historical fiction. Frankie's story is interesting, but there were times when her voice sounded so modern and off. There were probably too many characters, and the end made me regret sticking with it. I kept on thinking that I would get to the end and feel satisfied, but that didn't happen. Strong premise, poor execution.

This highly atmospheric nearly claustrophobic telling of a young American woman in rural Italy in the mid-20th Century doesn't have a lot in common with the recent "Ripley" miniseries in terms of plot, but to me felt very similar in tonality.

The Lost Boy of Santa Chiona is a labyrinth of loyalty to family and country, and an indictment of the American Savior complex. Rich in details about the tiny, isolated town in mountainous Italy, the book meanders through the mystery of missing men.

Too slow for my taste, but good writing.

I rarely DNF books from Net Galley, but I tried to read this book for weeks and I could not get into it. It’s an interesting premise, but pacing is slow and it’s hard to keep up with all the different characters. I was expecting more of a gripping mystery, but I lost interest quickly.

In 1960, Francesca Loftfield, an American, moves to the tiny Italian village of Santa Chionia to start a preschool. During the October rains the post office collapses and the bridge connecting Santa Chionia with the rest of Italy collapses, leaving the village cut off. A body is discovered in the rubble of the post office and Francesca feels compelled to figure out the identity of this child from many years ago. As an outsider, the villagers do not trust her, let alone sending their very young children to her preschool. As she visits the families in the village, she discovers a conspiracy of sorts exists. Everyone in the village is related to everyone else. The Mafia-type families still exist and power resides with only a few men in the village. Francesca manages to step on every one of their toes and puts her preschool in jeopardy.

There were a lot of characters to try to follow, and the story might have been better with a certain amount of tightening of the plot. In many ways Francesca comes across as the "ugly American."

Thank you NetGalley and Penguin RandomHouse for the ARC of The Lost Boys of Santa Chionia by Juliet Grimes in return for my honest opinion.

My first impression was that it was long. There were so many characters that floated around our main, Francesca, as she was trying to set up a nursery school for children in the Calabrian Village of Santa Chionia. After a particularly damaging storm that cut off the small village, the remains of a body was found under the post office and she took it upon herself to learn who that was.

I didn’t love the mystery aspect. It wasn’t really a mystery.

I loved the authors way of writing so the author can easily visualize Santa Chionia.

I would like to read it again once published so I can easily flip back and forth and mark some of the Italian words used for ease of reading, there were a lot!

DNF. The premise of this book caught my attention and sounded promising. While I enjoyed the aspect of it being a mystery book written in the style of a fiction novel, I was struggling through the fiction part of it. The author has a nice writing style however the actual plot of the book was lacking for me. I think that I could read a fiction novel by this author, but this book lacked to keep my attention. I simply was bored.

I really really tried with this one! I have actually never DNFed a book when I was so far along (almost 80%) but I just can’t make myself read anymore of it.

I loved the author’s last book- The Seven or Eight Deaths of Stella Fortuna- but just found The Lost Boy of Santa Chionia to be a complete slog. It was a buddy read with a few friends and none of us felt engaged in the plot and found the pace incredibly slow. I started this book almost 2 months ago but just can’t seem to finish it. I am finally going to throw in the towel and admit defeat.

It didn’t help that there were so many characters that I was constantly confused about who was who.

Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for the arc.

Set in the remote Calabrian village of Santa Chionia in the 1960s, THE LOST BOY OF SANTA CHIONIA is a beautifully written literary mystery that follows the main character, Francesca, as she embarks on a mission to start a school in Santa Chionia. When the town is hit by a devastating flood, Francesca’s mission is complicated by not only the damage from the flood, but the mystery surrounding a long-buried skeleton revealed when the flood waters recede.

This novel is beautifully written and fantastically layered, and I really enjoyed getting to know Francesca as she sought to connect with the community she joined, even while trying to process her own personal losses from which she’d fled. It’s a slow read, and there are a lot of characters to keep track of, but ultimately there is a well-crafted story here to savor if you’re patient with it.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the digital review copy.

Calabria, Italy 1960

A young American woman comes to this small village with no running water, electricity or doctors to open a nursery school. She quickly finds out this isn't quite what she had hoped for. After a severe flood, the bones of a young boy are discovered under the post office which washed away in the flood. Three people find her to help them find lost family members. She is determined to find out who this person was. Yet the powers that control this village are determined that she not find out who this was and the identity stay buried with the bones. Asking too many questions can get you in trouble in this backward community.

The premise of the book was intriguing to me, but for me, the telling of this story was too long and a bit hard to keep up with. There are a lot of characters and a story line that just wasn't compelling.

My thanks to Net Galley and Knopf Publishers for an advanced copy of this e-book.

In 1960 Francesca Loftfield, a twenty-seven-year-old American set on changing the world, arrives in the isolated mountain village of Santa Chionia tasked with opening a nursery school.. The village is very secluded from the rest of the world and things appear to run differently there than back in her Philadelphia home. A flood has knocked down the town post office and underneath skeletal remains have been found. Who is this and what happened? Francesca is set on finding out but seems to make some enemies along the way.

This book was a slow read for me; while I enjoyed the descriptive text regarding the setting I felt a lack in the actual story.

Thank you netgalley, the publisher and author for the ARC.

I enjoyed this tale of the life of a naïve young woman of the 1960’s seeking to do some good in the world. Francesca Loftfield is an American woman with dreams of starting nursery schools for poorer communities. She is sent to post-war Italy and assigned to the remote village of Santa Chionia in the mountains of Calabria in southern Italy.

Almost immediately after settling in, a flood destroyed the bridge leading into town, effectively cut them off from the outside world. When the flood destroyed the town’s post office, the bones of a long deceased community resident were uncovered. Who was this person and why were their bones hidden?

Another mystery landed on Francesca’s doorstep. An older woman wanted Francesca to find out what happened to her son who left for the United States many years ago, promising to keep in touch. When nothing was ever heard from the young man, his mother feared the worst.

Though there are threads of mystery that weave their way through the novel, the book did not feel to me like a mystery book. Nor did the fact that a romance began make this feel like it belonged to the romance genre. This book is the drama of a naïve young woman making her way through life in the closed society of a remote small town where information is currency that the townsfolk are loathed to spend. Having lived as an outsider in small towns, I felt Francesca’s dilemma.

This is a very elegantly written book that I enjoyed reading. I thank NetGalley for allowing me opportunity to read and review it.

I always enjoy and appreciate a well-written story, and The Lost Boy of Chionia is certainly that. This is a complex and layered story featuring a fairly remarkable character in Franca, or the maestra of this remote Italian village. I found the story slow to start, but the author clearly relished the opportunity to describe the isolated environment and its inhabitants which shape the story as it really gets going. The meandering pace is the only thing keeping me from really loving this book. I picked it up, put it down, picked it up, put it down so many times. But, I kept at it and was rewarded with a story that unfolded into one of the most interesting tales I've read this summer.

3/5 stars

I read this book for book club and I'm eager to chat about it later this month. This was my first book by Juliet Grames and I've been told that her other books have more of the 'ah ha' moment or 'wow' factor so I'm adding her other books to my tbr, especially The Seven or Eight Deaths of Stella Fortuna.

Although I liked this book, I was just hoping for a bit more and got a little confused with all the characters. I really liked the world and setting building and how I felt like I was in Santa Chionia. Sometimes Francesca annoyed me but overall, seeing her growth and bravery throughout the book was amazing.

This book was more 'fish out of water' and womens historical fiction than mystery but I still enjoyed the mystery aspect. Seeing her try to immerse herself in culture and with her new task of starting a nursery to help with their education was so fascinating.

Overall, I liked this book but didn't love it and I'm excited to discuss it with my book club!

3.5⭐️

Set in the remote South Calabrian village of Santa Chionia in 1960, The Lost Boy of Santa Chionia by Juliet Grames. follows twenty-seven-year-old American (of Calabrian and Norwegian descent), Francesca Loftfield, and the time she spent in the village in her efforts to open a nursery school funded by an international charity. Francesca estranged from her husband after a personal loss, is an educated, idealistic young woman who, despite having led a sheltered life, is motivated to take the assignment in the remote rustic village. Her job entails opening a nursery school and enrolling thirty-six pupils while also recruiting suitable candidates as teachers from the local community - not an easy task, trying to have her voice heard among those in a tight-knit community with their set ways. Complicating matters further is the fact that a human skeleton was recently discovered under the rubble of the old post office after flooding and Francesca is approached by two women, each of whom believes that the bones belong to one of their own. Francesca, in her pursuit of the identity of the deceased, finds herself getting more deeply involved in the affairs of the community than she had anticipated, ultimately risking the completion of her original mission and her very own survival.

There is a lot about The Lost Boy of Santa Chionia by Juliet Grames that is praiseworthy. The author writes beautifully, with a keen sense of time and place. The narrative is presented from the perspective of loving the atmospheric setting of Santa Chionia and the vivid descriptions of the landscape and depiction of the community and their way of life. I appreciated the complex plot and found the premise of this novel truly intriguing. The obstacles Francesca faces in her quest for the truth are convincing and evidenced thoroughly through how the author describes the power dynamics within the community, local political rivalry, deep-buried secrets and their own code of justice and how the community chooses to resolve conflict. The mystery angle was well - crafted and the tension was palpable as the narrative progressed.

However, the novel is unnecessarily lengthy and the pacing is uneven, with too many characters in the mix. Halfway through, I was struggling to remember how each of the characters was related to the other. Several secondary characters are well thought out, but I found it difficult to connect with Francesca. Francesca’s past is revealed through flashbacks and the narrative is shared through her first-person POV, giving us a glimpse into her innermost thoughts and emotions. However, I felt that her character could have been explored in more depth, especially in light of her reaction to the plight of the women and children in the Santa Chionia community and her personal choices. Though I was concerned for her well-being, I did find her a tad too gullible and trusting and thought that she would have made smarter choices, especially in the latter half of the story. The romance track felt contrived and I was left with a few unanswered questions at the end.

Overall, though I didn't dislike this novel in its entirety, I didn’t enjoy it as much as I had expected.

Many thanks to Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor for the digital review copy via NetGalley. All opinions expressed in this review are my own.

My family is from Calabria, so I always love reading books that take place in that part of the world. This one had the added benefit of being mysterious and engaging. There was a lot in this book, but not in a bad way. Well done!