The Sound of the Hours

July 22, 2019
Campbell (Rise) vividly depicts the consequences of war as a young Italian woman tries to survive when her village becomes a battleground during WWII. In 1943 Cartagnana, Italy, 18-year-old Vita Guidi puts aside her plans to become a teacher to work as a housekeeper for the local priest. She and her family face the dangers of wartime as German soldiers occupy the town, and her father is arrested. Vita’s cousin Joe, a partisan fighter, is frequently absent, and Vita wonders whether they will marry as her family expects. When Vita and her sister, Cesca, leave their home to stay with their grandmother in Lucca, Vita meets Frank Chapel, a black soldier in the U.S. Army, as the Allies advance. Frank and Vita are drawn to one another as he continues to serve in a segregated Army and faces discrimination from Italians and fellow soldiers. As their friendship blossoms into love, Vita and Frank share stolen moments and live in constant peril from the bombs falling around them. They continue to hope for a future together that would transcend the prejudices against their relationship and the dangers of war. Campbell writes with lyricism and emotion in portraying her characters’ thoughts and emotions, and her story is expertly plotted. Fans of rich historicals will be totally immersed. Agent: Jo Unwin, Jo Unwin Literary Agency.

July 15, 2019
Sparks fly between unlikely allies--an African American GI and an Italian girl stripped to her essence by suffering--in a World War II romance set in the harshly defended Tuscan mountains. Eighteen-year-old Vittoria Guidi joins the Italian partisans after she has lost almost everyone--her mother shot by the Nazis; her father deported to Germany; her cousins likely massacred in a nearby village. With family and meaning torn away and her town ransacked by the retreating German army, she has, she thinks, nothing left to lose. But recently, in Lucca, she met Frank Chapel, an American soldier in the Buffaloes--a segregated troop in the U.S. Army--and a connection sprang to life between them. Frank, battle-hardened by the loss of compatriots, the sheer physical toll of routing the Germans, and the steady drip of racial prejudice, will fight his way to Vittoria's community, and what began as a glance and a feeling will find the space to blossom. At its best, Campbell's (Rise, 2015, etc.) impassioned, impressionistic prose infuses her lead characters' feelings and circumstances with an intensity to match the merciless pressures of the era. Exploring a less familiar corner of the battlefield and the conflicting politics of place and time (Vittoria's mother supported the fascists, as did many Italians; black soldiers were the subject of intense negative propaganda), she delivers striking immediacy. It's at the periphery, with the secondary characters, that the novel seems weaker--the cartoon Blackshirt, all sneers and "pus-laden" acne; the token Jews; the gluttonous, meaty German general. Even college-boy Frank, smart and handsome, leans toward stereotype, but the love story, though familiar in form, becomes irresistible, especially in its late, poetic, heroic blaze of selflessness. For fans of indomitable heroines and love in the time of conflict, here's a stirring new addition to the genre.

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August 1, 2019
Living in her small Italian village, Vittoria Guidi dreams of finding her own path in life. An independent soul, Vita values education and hopes to become a teacher, but is held back by her parents' expectations and the limited roles for women in 1943. When WWII erupts, Vita's aspirations must wait. She instead strives to hold together her family, now divided between her fascist-sympathizing mother and her Scots-Italian father. Across the globe, promising Berkley student Frank Chapel volunteers to join the war effort. Once respected for his mind, Frank now faces discrimination as a Black soldier, and the reality of war quickly changes him. Exhausted, he cannot even remember what they are fighting for, until one glance changes his life forever. Frank immediately knows he will sacrifice everything to protect Vita. In this epic story of love, loss, and the humanity that binds us all together, Campbell (Rise, 2015) effortlessly captures the devastations of war: lives torn apart and families separated while everyone desperately clings to hope.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)