With today being World Ballet Day 2022, I obviously wanted to share a ballet-related book with everyone. I’ve been saving this book for months, and I’m excited to share it with you now! If you are looking for a historical fiction book to gift for the holiday season, or one to curl up with and get cosy, you are covered. This week’s Book Bite is looking at The Italian Ballerina by Kirsty Cambron.
Thank you to NetGalley for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review.
The Italian Ballerina, Kristy Cambron
A prima ballerina. Two American medics. And a young Jewish girl with no name . . . At the height of the Nazi occupation of Rome, an unlikely band of heroes comes together to save Italian Jews in this breathtaking World War II novel based on real historical events.
Rome, 1943. With the fall of Italy’s Fascist government and the Nazi regime occupying the streets of Rome, British ballerina Julia Bradbury is stranded and forced to take refuge at a hospital on Tiber Island. But when she learns of a deadly sickness that is sweeping through the quarantine wards—a fake disease known only as Syndrome K—she is drawn into one of the greatest cons in history. Alongside hospital staff, friars of the adjoining church, and two Allied medics, Julia risks everything to rescue Italian Jews from the deadly clutches of the Holocaust. But when one little girl who dreams of becoming a ballerina arrives at their door, Julia and the others are determined to reunite the young dancer with her family—if only she would reveal one crucial secret: her name.
Present Day. With the recent loss of her grandfather—a beloved small-town doctor and WWII veteran—Delaney Coleman returns home to help her aging parents, even as she struggles to pick up the pieces of her own life. When a mysterious Italian woman claims she owns one of the family’s precious heirlooms, Delaney is compelled to uncover what’s true of her grandfather’s hidden past. Together with the woman’s skeptical but charming grandson, Delaney learns of a Roman hospital that saved hundreds of Jewish people during the war. Soon, everything Delaney thought she knew about her grandfather comes into question as she wrestles with the possibility that the man she’d revered all her life had unknown ties to Rome and may have taken noble secrets to his grave.
Why You Should Read This…
I do not have much interest in the Second World War. I know that I am an oddity, but I tend to find it immensely sad and difficult to read about. (Even in fiction!) However, I am fascinated by dancers during the war. Many companies, like the Royal Ballet (as they would later be known), travelled extensively during the war to perform. And Audrey Hepburn herself danced during the war. Most of the recollections I’ve read ended “well” (for a war story), but The Italian Ballerina looks at a dancer when things go sideways during the war and they can’t dance.
Because I don’t read a lot of WWII fiction, I found this fascinating. I did have to concentrate with the dual timeline, but it was absolutely worthwhile for this beautiful story. And as an historian, I appreciated the amount of research that went into this novel- it really came across in my reading experience.
My only slight qualm is that there could have been more about ballet in this book; however, that can get tedious for any non-dancers to read. I think that this is the perfect balance for a wide-range of readers!
Is The Italian Ballerina on your to-read list?
Cheers,
The Historian
Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Pinterest
Interesting!