I almost didn't read this book because of an Amazon reviewer's complaint about the too much of back-and-forth with the dates of the two interlocking stories. Yet, at the end, I was glad I read it. While not an earth-shattering literary novel, The Venice Sketchbook is not boring either. I rather enjoyed reading it.

Coming back to the back-and-forth complaint, yes, there's a bit of that, but mostly it is done with a good reason. In my opinion, some of the back and forth could be avoided after the midpoint in the novel. Still it is a 400+ pages and this can be overlooked. I noted the back-and-forths as: 1940, 1928, 2001, 1938, 2001, 1939, 2001, 1939, 2001, 1939, 2001, (1939-1940-1941), 2001, 1942-1943, 1945.

Another thing about the book is that it's written according to a template, which is a frame story holding the inner story and the two stories reflecting each other. There is nothing wrong with that since the author has done a good job with it. The frame story has Caroline and Luca while the inner story has Juliette and Leo. Not much of a sizzling romance in either story, except for a baby, the result of a one-time encounter.

What made me more uncomfortable than the back-and-forth in timelines are the too many coincidences in actions like that of Leo and Juliette bumping into each other a lot, even at a prisoner camp at the end.

With everything considered, one has to respect this author's writing prowess since she has given the readers such a great setting and a beautiful language in describing it. Then, the historical research also seems very good as well as some of the characters to fit the World War II era or the more modern time they live in.

Relaxing and enjoying the scenery.

anything about Venice, then and now.

is Rhys Bowen, a prolific writer of more than 40 novels.

It is reading for fun. I found nothing splendid or earthshattering as to its literariness or any other serious writerly concern.

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Created Dec 08, 2021 at 7:23pm • Submit your own review...