The Lost Boy of Santa Chionia by Juliet Grames is an engaging mystery set in the picturesque town of Santa Chionia in Calabria during the 1960s. Our protagonist, Francesca Lottfield, of Italian descent , arrives with the noble but difficult task of opening a nursery school in the small village, but the story quickly takes a darker turn when a catastrophic flood reveals a hidden skeleton.

Despite the local community’s reluctance to delve into the mystery, Francesca’s determination leads her to reaveal a well-kept secret, uncovering the true nature of some of the town’s residents. The slow pace of the narrative allows for a deep exploration of the characters and the setting, although the number of characters and conflicts between them, can be a little confusing at times. The unexpected twist in the secret Francesca uncovers adds a layer of intrigue that keeps the reader engaged until the end.

Overall, The Lost Boy of Santa Chionia is a well-crafted mystery that balances atmosphere and suspense, making it a rewarding read.

This book was a difficult read for me. It was a bit of a mystery but I didn’t feel like we hit that until later in the story. The many characters and plots kind of confused me

Thank you Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor | Knopf for allowing me to read and review The Lost Boy of Santa Chionia a novel by Juliet Grames on NetGalley.

Published: 07/23/24

Stars: 2.5

The synopsis, cover and title drew me to the book. Unfortunately, while the book is in English I had trouble with the names, places and events. I just could not follow along an individual's story line. There are a lot of characters. I would read a bit and sometimes the pieces came together, but most often I was left contemplating a flow chart. Finally, I opted to pull the audio up on Libby and try reading along with the narration. The names were so different than what I'm accustomed to I still had problems. However, I was able to connect more with the story and found I liked it. It was creepy and noirish. However, I finished the book -- I can't tell you anything about it.

In 1960 in the small village of Santa Chionia, Francesca, a young American woman separated from her Italian husband comes to the village naive and excited to open a nursery school for the children of the village. Even for 1960, the village is behind the times, no electricity, running water, roads or even a doctor - many of the young people leave when they can. And now a flood has wiped out the post office. But the flood also unearthed a skeleton bringing old mysteries to the surface that Francesca has gotten caught up into and feels the need to solve.

I wanted to like this book, the setting and premise were interesting, but it just didn’t hold my attention and Francesca’s back story kept me more interested than the present one. Some of the ancillary characters were fun and the village was full of them but the story held no draw for me and I was just reading and hoping for more. Unfortunately this was a miss for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and Knopf for the ARC to read

3.5 stars

Grames has crafted an atmospheric murder mystery set in 1960 in an inaccessible region of Southern Italy. Francesca Loftfield is a 27 year old American who was sent by a nonprofit, Child Rescue, to establish a nursery school for needy children in a remote village in the Calabrian mountains. Francesca is a self-professed “blue-stocking,” an earnest, idealistic, proto-feminist who tries to work with the cautious locals to recruit potential teachers and students.

Shortly after Francesca arrives, a flood uncovers human bones buried under the local post office. Several of the villagers prevail on Francesca to help them discretely discern if the remains belong to their missing loved ones. Francesca ignores the parting words of her superior who cautioned, “Stick to your protocols and make no exceptions. No Exceptions.” Instead, eager to build relationships with the wary locals, Francesca, with the help of her initially disagreeable landlady, Cicca Casile, undertakes detective work to try to determine who the bones belong to and to uncover the identity of the culprit responsible for murder.

This is a compelling, well-crafted crime fiction rich in detail. Grames touches on a number of themes including the patriarchy, class, power, cultural complexities and the inevitability of crime. The fictional Santa Chiona is teeming with life and danger, yet it is a spell-binding destination.

Interesting setting and characters but I didn't enjoy the writing style. Didn't enjoy all of the long, descriptive passages but that's just a personal preference type of thing.

Grames takes us to Santa Chionia, a village in southern Italy, in 1960. Francesca is a twenty-something American whose mission is to start a nursery school for young children—the families she encounters live in virtual squalor compared to her standards. Francesca is idealistic and naive. She wholeheartedly believes that she has the communication skills and resolve to convince the people of this small town to accept a better way of life.

Shouldn't Francesca be welcome since she is well-equipped to bring modernity to this village? Wouldn't the people accept her messages about hygiene and modern childrearing? Well, Francesca misjudged how steeped the people are in tradition. She must face numerous obstacles, starting with Ciccia, her landlord. Ciccia is so involved in Francesca's daily life that she insists on doing Francesca's laundry without regard for whether she will have access to underwear daily. Beyond that, there is a priest who shocks her with stories of the Catholic past of the villagers. Then there are politicians and police and all of the usual characters in a tight-knit town where everybody knows everybody else's business.

When a human skeleton is discovered, many theories exist about who might have died. Francesca becomes preoccupied with trying to solve the mystery of the dead body, leading to her having different relationships with the villagers than her intended mission required. Learning about the secrets of this community is difficult since Francesca has secrets of her own.

Grames tackles some tough themes through the interactions of her characters and the unraveling of the mystery. Customs and traditions are complicated for the protagonist to put in perspective. She struggles with incredible power structures, deals, and betrayals among provincial people. Francesca is supposed to be a conduit for education and improving the status of women and their children, but sometimes, she has the most to learn. Keeping all the characters and incidents straight in this lengthy work is challenging. Still, the author will keep you wondering about the mystery of the skeleton, Francesca's inner fabric, and the village of Santa Chionia.

I loved the historical elements and the world-building in this book. It was richly descriptive and evoked the beauty of Calabria’s landscape. However, I feel there were too many storylines to follow, which led to a convoluted plot. Perhaps it would have worked better if the ending had provided more clarity. Overall, it left me unimpressed.

The premise of this book was so interesting but the writing style wasn't my cup of tea. Probably a case of wrong timing.

When I saw that this book takes place in Calabria, Italy, where my grandfather was born, I was excited to get immersed in the culture and flavor of the country of my ancestors. Francesca is an idealistic young American who comes to Calabria in the early 60s to open a nursery school for the children in the village. Every year in October, the residents endure 'the floods', which can last days or weeks, saturating the streets and sidewalks into thick, soggy piles of mud. The stalwart Italians clean this up every year and go about their lives as if nothing has happened. That year, however, was especially devastating, as landslides ran down the hillsides and roared into the main village. The aftermath of the storm unearths the skeleton of a young boy. When one of the local women begs Francesca to help determine if this is her long lost son, she dutifully goes into detective mode, despite many of the townsfolk code of silence about the matter. Soon she gets in over her head and is juggling potential mafia interest, additional missing people, and skeptical locals.
The author does a really good job infusing the story with long descriptive passages of the rural town, now isolated from the world by the floods. You feel the isolation of the village and how overly dependent the people become to each other, forming an unbreakable bond that is hard to infiltrate as an outsider. There are lots of characters here, many of which have similar names and are related to each other. So some editing might have been helpful as this book clocks in at over 400 pages. Lots of long sections about oppression, privilege, and tradition, which are all hard to change, despite Francesca's best efforts.
It was an interesting story, but some loose threads at the end left me not fully satisfied.

This was a very interesting book I learned a lot about Italian cultures the small town is so cool when Francis and got there she had so much fun and but there was a dead body because of a flood she was an American and she was sent there to be a nursery school teacher for some organization she was also married to Italian man and the marriage did not go very well so she set out to start a new life it was a very interesting town because there was some kind of Mafia thing going on when the men would go to America the town people wanted to know who this body was so two people in the town contacted her and to find out if it was the missing son for a woman who was in town The Other Woman was married to a man and he disappeared too and she wanted to know what happened to him they both went to America and this is really interesting how you find out what really happened it's like a murder mystery a love story all rolled into one the love story is about a Shepherd Who falls in love with Franciscan but she is still married this is a really great book

Just didn't grab me. I thought she was butting in where she had no reason to be. She should have told the women she could not help them. The story dragged. Too many side issues and she came across as wishy washy. Not my cup of tea.

A winding tale of a woman determined to bring child care to Santa Chionia, ensnared in the search for lost family members of several women in town, a place where not everyone or everything is as it seems. The novel is full of mafia style influence and leads me through many moments of “wait, is that true?”

Thank you @knopf and @prhaudio for my early copies of this novel, which was published this week!

THE LOST BOYS OF SANTA CHIONIA follows Francesca, an American, as she heads to Calabria to set up a nursery school in the mountain town of Santa Chionia. She almost immediately learns of a skeleton found in town that is unidentified, as well as the stories of several lost young men from earlier in the town’s history. Franscesca then spends the majority of the novel searching for these missing boys and trying to identify that skeleton, despite the fact she is most definitely NOT the police.

If you enjoy historical fiction with strong women and stories steeped in factual interpretations and surprise endings, you will definitely enjoy this novel.

Nestled in the mountainous Aspromonte region right in the tip of Italy’s boot is a remote, isolated little village called Santa Chionia. The town lacks even the most basic of infrastructure, its people are mostly poor shepherds, and its child mortality rate is abyssmal. The Child Rescue Foundation has decided to open a nursery school there and they’ve sent a young American woman named Francesca Loftfield to do just that. Francesca is educated, determined and sincerely wants to help, but soon finds she is a barely tolerated outsider living in a highly suspicious, closed off community.
Gorgeous prose and an outstanding plot propel this novel right to the top of my list of the best fiction to publish this year. It’s a story about bad actors in pursuit of power, control and money. It’s a story about murder. And, it’s the story of an idealistic young woman caught up in the middle of it all. What an ending! It took me by surprise. This is a what I call an excellent read.

The Lost Boy of Santa Chionia by Juliet Garmes is a mystery with shades of oppression, control, and the effects of a war on a region.

Set in the 1960s, Francesca, an American of Italian descent, goes to Santa Chionia, an Italian town, to open a nursery school. A skeleton is found under the post office, which is years old. Circumstances arise such that she starts investigating the details of the skeleton. But is she putting herself and the residents of Santa Chionia in the process?

This book was very interesting. The story has many layers that include reproductive rights, religion, oppression, control, and mafia. I liked the setting that adds a lot of atmosphere to the story. However, it's slow paced and requires a lot of attention to detail. It meanders quite a bit, and there is a lot going on that sometimes tests the reader's patience. This book is not an easy read, in my opinion, but a good one.

This is a book that you'll want to read slowly not because it's boring or slow. It's because it has so much to tell you and you need to time to slowly take it in. It revolves around the story of an American woman named Francesca who moves to Calabria in the 60's to open up a snursery scholl for the townspeople to help educate the children of the village since it is literally cut off from the world after recent floods. It's a village where everyone knows each others business and there are things that are done a certain way. Francesca looks to work amongst the villagers for other issues. One of them is trying to discover who the bones belong to that were discovred under the post office. There are a few villagers who think that they belong to them. They ask her to find out the truth. There is also a love story that is part of this story. The scenes in this book are very decriptive and you really feel like you are on the mountain with her trying to uncover the truth. Francesca is a character that you will not forget in that she's a little bit of all of us. Trying to do better for the world even though there are times when we are tested by people and places. I highly recommned this book for book clubs and people who are interested in learning about other countries and love to dive into a totally original story. Thank you to KNOPF and Netgalley for the read.

3.5 stars, rounded up. While this did feel a little lengthy, it's a compelling story with a stunning setting in 1960s rural Italy, a place that feels out of time and has unique cultural traditions and expectations. It's a uniquely interesting time period and place to read about, and Francesca's experiences as an American in Italy at the time allow her to have a good perspective to share.

First of all this is not a pure mystery novel. This is multi-genre fiction with a semi-autobiographical feel. There is a lot of history and culture of a fictional rural village in Calabria called Santa Chionia thrown in. It is the 1960s. Patriarchal society is the order of the day and corruption is at a high. There is no concept of women's rights at all. In the midst of this setting, a forward thinking American social worker called Francesca arrives on a quest to set up a children's school. She ends up meddling into the affairs of the inhabitants and pretty much upending their lives. I would say the Adventures and misadventures of Francesca would have been a more apt title to describe this book. There are multitudes of characters with similar sounding Italian names and they are all related to one another in some or the other manner. Keeping a family tree handy is a must. The book runs into over 400 pages and while I learnt a lot of interesting things about the society and attitudes and struggles of the time, I admit I struggled to carry on till the end. If I hadn't committed to reviewing the ARC I might have given up at some point.
Thank you NetGalley and Knopf Publishing for the ARC

“Life in Santa Chionia had always been lived on the edge of the abyss. The beauty of it lulls you to the fact that any step you take might be a fatal one.”

Our narrator, Francesca, is a witty and progressive American, transplanted to a small Calabrian mountain town to open a nursery school for a charity. Not long after she arrives, a skeleton turns up, and as Francesca becomes entangled in all the possible explanations for this gruesome discovery, she also finds herself caught in a complex web of crime and politics. It’s more literary fiction than mystery, although there is quite a bit of mystery, too.

I could tell as soon as I started that it was going to take me a long time to get through, and it was a slow start - I had no trouble putting it down until about ⅓ of the way in. It’s well written and clever, but a little dense, and it seemed to have a bigger vocabulary than the thrillers I usually read. Some of the word choice was just a little over the top (who describes a person as a “genialoid strategos” and what does that even mean?) and I eventually realized that several of the big, unfamiliar words were just made up - one word’s Wikipedia entry attributed it to Edward Lear - at which point I decided I would stop feeling stupid and just focus on the plot. Once I did that, it picked up - one mystery leads to another, and Francesca increasingly uncovers more and more of the villagers’ lies.

Towards the end of the story I started to wonder if it was really Francesca who was the stupid one, because she took way too long to figure out who was pulling the strings in Santa Chionia. She was the last one to get it. The ending answers a lot of questions, but none with certainty, as Francesca reflects on her experience and puts the pieces together.

Threaded into the story are social and political themes of privilege and oppression, tradition and change, insiders and outsiders. Maybe one of the reasons I’m seeing mixed reviews is because it’s a little too smart for us. I didn’t (and still don’t) know much about this region and time period, so it was a bit harder to keep track of names, events, and geography, but I found myself wanting to learn more of the history. If I were to read the book again, I would write down the connections between characters and try to keep track.

Know that this takes a bit of patience but then you, like me, might find yourself hooked on this tale of Francesca, a 20 something American woman meant to be opening a nursery school in a village in Calabria so remote that water must be collected from the source. Franca's left a love behind in Rome for life in this difficult place where she lives with one of the best characters I've read in a while-her landlady Cicca. A flood, which takes out the bridge, also unearths a skeleton from under the post office, which leads two different women to Franca hoping she can find more information about a missing son and a husband respectively. She deals with the local priest, with the mayor, with Don Tito, and with the various people in Santa China as she works to set up the nursery and to get the truth about the men. No one is what they seem at first and the half truths (or half stories) are frustrating. So is the arrival of Ugo, who touches her heart but...I'll admit I found myself occasionally lost with the who's who but the atmospherics (oh when she finally washes her clothes herself, the 0300 Novena and so on) are wonderful. There are multiple serious issues underlying life in Santa China which Franca finds hard to reconcile and understand. It's a terrific portrait of a stranger in a closed society trying to pick her way in. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. Great characters and storytelling made this a wonderful read.