Matthew O'Connell

This is a charming contemporary tale that incorporates the lives of some of the great Italian artists from Medieval and Renaissance times such as Berlinghiero Berlinghieri, Daddi, Giotto, Filippo Lippi, and Michelangelo. Mackenzie is an engaging character with her skills in art restoration, her cat Octavius, and living with her dad Joe (a retired detective). She’s very excited to be working at the Cloisters restoring old paintings. Anthony Bataglia, a renowned restorer, will be mentoring her. Indeed, Mackenzie is on Cloud 9 with the direction her live is taking. But then she starts to suspect something else is going on with some of the paintings. She notices a small anomaly in a few paintings that span several decades. Her dad offers to help her dig into the matter and what they uncover doesn’t look good for Bataglia.

The suspense is well done, cranking the reader up chapter by chapter. There’s also small flashbacks to the lives of these renowned Italian artists. Eventually, it’s revealed what Bataglia’s connection is to these artists and Mackenzie is astounded. I really liked the flashbacks even though they didn’t linger over historical details. The flashback that had the most impact on me involved the bubonic plague.

At that point, Bataglia becomes the focus of the tale. Mackenzie falls to the background, turning into a pale reflection of Bataglia’s interesting life. I was a bit sad to see that Mackenzie lost a good chunk of her personality at this point.

The romance is a slow burn that I could see coming a mile off. At first, I didn’t mind. After all, the two are interested in the same things. However, I didn’t like how Mackenzie’s personality shrunk as the story became all about Bataglia. While he is arguably the most interesting character in the story, I needed Mackenzie to continue to stand out to bring balance to it. The romance turned Mackenzie into a silly girl who lost her head over her first serious love interest.

Getting back to Bataglia, he laid out a believable past and one that Mackenzie eventually came to believe. There’s a dramatic bit near the ending that pushed Mackenzie to bouts of tears and depression and I was surprised that she couldn’t see through the ruse. It was obvious to me. Then finally, that little bit about Bataglia getting a few grey hairs – Ah! That was genius because now I question if Bataglia is really what he says he is or just a master story teller and manipulator. I get to decide and I really liked that about the ending. 4/5 stars.

The Narration: Susan Fouche did a fantastic job with this narration. He New York and Italian accents really brought this story to life. Her pacing was perfect and her male voices were believable. She had distinct voices for all the characters. Plenty of emotions are on display in this tale and Fouche brought them all to life. 5/5 stars.

I received a free copy of this book.… (meer)