TWO WOMEN IN ROME BY ELIZABETH BUCHAN

I don’t only enjoy Elizabeth Buchan’s books, but one day I would love to be able to emulate them. The depth she brings to everything is astonishing and it is done with such consummate ease that as a reader you barely notice it; all you are aware of is how immersed in the story you are.

Lottie has married in haste and arrives in Rome to begin her new life with her husband Tom, and a new role in a privately funded archive. But before her job even really begins she is asked to catalogue a new find; boxes relating to another Englishwoman, Nina Lawrence, who was brutally murdered in the city in the 1970s. Nina’s story is told partly through Lottie’s finds, and partly in her own words, but as it unfolds it becomes apparent there was more to this talented garden designer and artist than meets the eye.

Part romance, part thriller, but more than anything a novel about human nature in all its glories; of compelling, forbidden, life changing love; of the pasts that haunt us; of dangerous secrets. All set in one of the world’s most beautiful cities. Simply fabulous.