Sign up for our newsletters to receive our Best of 2024 ezine!

Book Summary and Reviews of Last Train from Liguria by Christine Dwyer Hickey

Last Train from Liguria by Christine Dwyer Hickey

Last Train from Liguria

by Christine Dwyer Hickey

  • Critics' Consensus (0):
  • Published:
  • Apr 2011, 392 pages
  • Rate this book

About this book

Book Summary

A sweeping tale of consequences spanning the 1930s to the 1990s, moving between fascist Italy and modern Ireland

In 1933, Bella Stuart leaves her quiet London life to move to Italy to tutor the child of a beautiful Jewish heiress and an elderly Italian aristocrat. Living at the family’s summer home, Bella's reserve softens as she comes to love her young charge, and find friendship with Maestro Edward, his enigmatic music teacher. But as the decade draws to an end and fascism tightens its grip on Europe, the fact that Alec is Jewish places his life in grave danger. Bella and Edward take the boy on a terrifying train journey out of Italy?one they have no reason to believe any of them will survive.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

Media Reviews

"Starred Review. A haunting novel that will stay with you long after you've put it down - or urged it upon a friend. It will appeal to readers who have enjoyed the themes of Andrea Levy's or William Boyd's novels." - Library Journal

"With great subtlety and skill, connections are uncovered, so that present and past become metaphors of one another, and the life of Bordighera echoes uneasily across the decades with the now imploded grandiosities of Celtic Tiger Ireland. Tactically, this is a master stroke, for it bursts the book out of the museum of exhausting accuracies that is always lying in wait for the historical novelist." - The Guardian

"Last Train from Liguria is a book of great promise, and the author keeps that promise in terms of remarkable description, believable locations and an authentic cast of peripheral characters. But for too long Dwyer Hickey keeps a too-tight lid upon the whirlpool of emotions simmering under the surface, and it is always ferocity of feeling, rather than elegant places and things, which tip the balance for this reader." - The Independent (Ireland)

"A significant achievement that confirms Hickey's status as a major talent." - Mail on Sunday

This information about Last Train from Liguria was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Author Information

Christine Dwyer Hickey

Christine Dwyer Hickey is the author of Tatty, which was longlisted for the Orange Prize and shortlisted for the Hughes & Hughes Irish Novel of the Year. She was also a prize-winner in the Observer/Penguin short story competition.

More Author Information

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

More Recommendations

Readers Also Browsed . . .

more historical fiction...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket: The God of the Woods
    The God of the Woods
    by Liz Moore
    Bestselling author Liz Moore's latest novel, The God of the Woods, begins with a disappearance. ...
  • Book Jacket: Becoming Madam Secretary
    Becoming Madam Secretary
    by Stephanie Dray
    Our First Impressions reviewers enjoyed reading about Frances Perkins, Franklin Delano Roosevelt's ...
  • Book Jacket: Everything We Never Had
    Everything We Never Had
    by Randy Ribay
    Francisco Maghabol has recently arrived in California from the Philippines, eager to earn money to ...
  • Book Jacket: There Are Rivers in the Sky
    There Are Rivers in the Sky
    by Elif Shafak
    Elif Shafak's novel There Are Rivers in the Sky follows three disparate individuals separated by ...

BookBrowse Book Club

Book Jacket
In Our Midst
by Nancy Jensen
In Our Midst follows a German immigrant family’s fight for freedom after their internment post–Pearl Harbor.
Book Jacket
The Rose Arbor
by Rhys Bowen
An investigation into a girl's disappearance uncovers a mystery dating back to World War II in a haunting novel of suspense.
Win This Book
Win My Darling Boy

My Darling Boy by John Dufresne

The story of of a man whose son collapses into addiction and vanishes into the chaotic netherworld of southern Florida.

Enter

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

D T the B O W the B

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.