Early one morning

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

'As gripping as any thriller' Daily Mail

A grey dawn in 1943: on a street in Rome, two young women, complete strangers to each other, lock eyes for a single moment.

One of the women, Chiara Ravello, is about to flee the occupied city for the safety of her grandparents' house in the hills. The other has been herded on to a truck with her husband and their young children, and will shortly be driven off into the darkness.

In that endless-seeming moment, before she has time to think about what she is doing, Chiara makes a decision that changes her life for ever. Loudly claiming the woman's son as her own nephew, she demands his immediate return; only as the trucks depart does she begin to realize what she has done. She is twenty-seven, single, with a sister who needs her constant care, a hazardous journey ahead of her, and now a child in her charge - a child with no papers who refuses to speak and gives every indication that he will bolt at the first opportunity.

Three decades later, Chiara lives alone in Rome, a self-contained, self-possessed woman working as a translator and to all appearances quite content with a life which revolves around work, friends, music and the theatre. But always in the background is the shadow of Daniele, the boy from the truck, whose absence haunts her every moment. Gradually we learn of the havoc wrought on Chiara, her family and her friends by the boy she rescued, and how he eventually broke her heart. And when she receives a phone call from a teenage girl named Maria, claiming to be Daniele's daughter, Chiara knows that it is time for her to face up to the past.

This epic novel is an unforgettably powerful, suspenseful, heartbreaking and inspiring tale of love, loss and war's reverberations down the years.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

Baily's second novel (after Africa Junction) begins in Nazi-occupied Rome in 1943. -Chiara Ravello is preparing to flee to her grandparents' house when she happens across families being forcibly removed from the Jewish ghetto. Without thinking, she rescues a boy from his mother's arms, an action that has three decades' worth of repercussions for Chiara, the boy, Daniele, and eventually his daughter, Maria, who hopes to someday meet him. This is not a sentimental tale of a good deed met with the instant reward of a happily ever after but is instead the story of two women coming to terms with themselves as they search for a man who touched both their lives in different ways. While the novel ends in a rush, readers will be drawn to the vibrant and brave characters. VERDICT This will appeal to fans of Maggie O'Farrell and lovers of historical, intergenerational, or Italian fiction. [See "Editors' Fall Picks," LJ 9/1/15, p. 29.]-Mara Dabrishus, Ursuline Coll. Lib., Pepper Pike, OH © Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publishers Weekly Review

As Nazi soldiers march into Rome in 1943, 26-year-old spinster Chiara Ravello prepares to flee to the countryside with her sister, Cecilia, whose frequent seizures have left her with the mind of a child. As Chiara passes the Jewish Quarter, a young mother wordlessly shoves her seven-year-old son into Chiara's arms. She smuggles the boy, named Daniele, to her grandparents' farm, and later raises him to adulthood. Decades later, in 1973, a Welsh teenager named Maria Kelly discovers that Daniele is her father, and her quest for answers leads her to Chiara, who initially chooses to describe herself merely as Daniele's former landlady. Maria's arrival in Rome stirs up heartbreaking memories for Chiara, who has not seen or spoken to Daniele in 10 years. Eventually, she'll have to tell Maria about the true nature of her relationship with Daniele and contend with three decades' worth of shameful memories. Baily's cast of remarkable, memorable characters-each with their own set of demons-drives a plot that's filled with unexpected twists and manages to populate the well-trodden literary arenas of World War II, the Italian countryside, and hidden family secrets with a fresh perspective and an unexpected resolution. Baily's novel hums with emotional resonance. (Sept.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Booklist Review

This beautifully descriptive first novel moves between 1943 and 1973 to tell a wartime story of survival and connection. In occupied Rome, Chiara Ravello makes an impulsive decision to save the life of Daniele Levi, a young Jewish boy about to be transported to a concentration camp. That decision will haunt her for years as she labors to care for him as well as her sister, an epileptic whose seizures have caused brain damage. Every day is a monumental struggle to find food and shelter while avoiding the scrutiny of the SS. Three decades later, a young girl from Wales telephones Chiara with a plaintive request; she has learned that she is the daughter of Daniele and wishes to meet him. So starts Chiara's attempts to locate the young man she has been estranged from for years. Not only does Baily capture the bursting color and sumptuous food of Rome but she also details the swinging scene of 1970s Wales. Most impressive is the way she strips her story of all sentimentality; Chiara's rocky relationship with the difficult Daniele is rendered with heartbreaking clarity.--Wilkinson, Joanne Copyright 2015 Booklist

Kirkus Book Review

Vivid and freshly cast family drama that draws on the experience of civilians who came to the aid of Italy's Jews during the Nazi occupation. Though other points of view enter the narrative, it's spry, chain-smoking, never-married Signora Chiara Ravelloreliably sturdy, inwardly doubtingwho holds close the cards a reader most cares about. In October 1943, while preparing to evacuate Rome with her mentally impaired sister, Chiara saved a Jewish boy (with his mother's collusion) from almost certain death under the very noses of German police who were rounding up his family for deportation. Flash-forward to the 1950s, when Daniele, the boy she rechristened and raised as her own kin, enters rebellious puberty and stumbles on Chiara's other secreta terrible one. Before she can form an acceptable explanation, he's gone from her life. As the narrative zigzags between past, near-past, and present, we're introduced to a colorful legion of minor characters, only two of whom have an inkling of Chiara's involvement with anti-fascist partisans, her wrenching wartime sacrifice, or the reason for Daniele's disappearance: Father Antonio, Chiara's old friend and colleague at the pontifical library where she works as a translator; and charismatic, intellectual Simone, her dead father's former mistress. Enter Maria, a British teenager who claims to be Daniele's child and has found Chiara's phone number on a letter. When the girl begs to spend the summer as the signora's lodger in Rome to improve her Italian, 60-something Chiara recognizes a possible path of reprieve from actions weighing on her soul: above all, she wants her life "not to be one where his name is never spokenand this girl will be the key." At a moment when families around the globe are being upturned by organized aggression and civil war, Baily offers a poignant, not-too-sappy fable about surviving war's cruelties and crushing losses and the near-miraculous feats of bonding humans are sometimes capable of. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.