"Restoration" is a good early Autumn read. The story moves along with grace and enough interest in the characters to keep the reader engaged and compelled to read on, losing track of the time. The story takes place in the last days of the German occupation of Italy in World War II. The allies have landed and are pushing the last of the German troops up into the hills and mountainous regions of northern Italy.
We follow the intertwining story to two woman, Alice and Kristin, whom fate has brought together in a lovely villa in the hills of Tuscany. Alice is the daughter of an ex pat British family who falls in love with Claudio, a man her parents deem unworthy of her. Claudio and Alice buy a crumbling villa and turn it into a productive farm where they grow olives and grapes, employing the locals, some of whom are partisans in the struggle against Germany. During a period of restlessness, Alice begins an affair with an old childhood friend, which has disastrous results.
Kristin, a talented restored of old master paintings is Icelandic, trained in technique in Copenhagen and Rome. She also has a secret that emerges as the paths of the two women cross.
The protagonist of the story is a selfish art historian named Robert Marshall who has a hold over both women, bringing harm to them through blackmail.
Italy's struggle in the war is the backdrop to the novel as it moves to a climax in the hills outside Florence in the hills towns of Tuscany.
Although the novel could easily have fallen into the realm of soap opera, Olafsson's writing is colorful and interesting enough to avoid the cliches of a romance novel. It is an altogether interesting read for a rainy afternoon.
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