Mona Lisa’s Daughter
by Belle Ami
417 pages, Tema N Merback Publishing
Genre : Historical Fiction
"Life is a brief dream, and love is the only thing that makes it worthwhile".
Why is the smile of Mona Lisa so mysterious in the painting? Valentina is put in a convent by her mother when she is pregnant after she is raped. She works helping the librarian and discovers letters over 400 years old - correspondence between Da Vinci and Mona Lisa. As the librarian wants her to make copies of it in ink and print, she sets about doing it.Once Valentina has the baby, she is convinced by the nuns to give up her baby daughter for adoption and a young Jewish couple adopt her baby. She is forced to return and her mother decides to marry her to her rapist and Valentina leaves her home and becomes a nun in Florence.. But what has Da Vinci's correspondence 400 years ago with Lisa got to do with Valentina and the second world war? The author answers this and much more in her book, 'Mona Lisa's daughter'.
Set in Florence the story entwines the story of Leonardo Da Vinci and Valentina in alternating chapters as they live four centuries apart. The story tells of the history of Florence during the wars during Da Vinci's time and Valentina's time. It also talks about the friendship and love between the elderly and gay Leonardo Da Vinci and young Signora Lisa del Giocondo aka Mona Lisa who was married and had 5 children and whose husband commissioned the portrait.
It flits all over Italy - Rome, Milan, Pisa and Florence. By using two timelines and weaving them together, the author amuses the reader with the rivalry between Leonardo Da Vinci and Michelangelo Buonarroti with Raphael Sanzio and Sandro Botticelli making an appearance apart from Machiavelli and explorer Amerigo Vespucci after whom America is named. In Valentina's time line who else but Benito Mussolini or Il Duce, who had a Jewish mistress and Valentina's rapist Dante whose family are proud fascists. Most WW2 timelines in fiction pay more attention to Hitler and the Third Reich but very little to Mussolini, the original fascist who was arrested in 1943 by Italians who then joined with the Allies after which the Germans invaded Italy and took away the Jews to concentration camps in other parts of Europe though many escaped thanks to their fellow Italians.
The writing flows easy, doesn't stow down its pace but reminds one how history might repeat itself if we don't learn from it. The pace is good and makes you wonder who Mona Lisa's daughter is until she makes her appearance and you learn how she ended up.
One has to applaud the author as she has managed to tell an engaging story based on historical facts. It is tough since it covers so many well known historical icons.
This is one book you have to read this year. Buy it here on Amazon
