The Lost Madonna

February 15, 2007
Suzanne Cunningham, an art-history professor living in Idaho, is thrilled when she is invited to lecture at a university in Florence. Suzanne has an intense connection with the city. In November of 1966, Suzanne, 19, was visiting Florence when the now-infamous flood occurred. She stays to help with the recovery of precious artwork from the Uffizi, a decision that changes her life. She falls in love with both a painting, a haunting fifteenth-century portrait of the madonna and child, and a man, sensual art restorer Stefano Leonetti. Still enamored of both after all this time, Suzanne is shocked when she reads a journal article that claims that the painting was lost in the flood. Knowing that to be false, Suzanne begins an investigation that brings her past back into the foreground, including a secret she's been guarding carefully. Jones' vivid descriptions of Florence, and the involving story, will captivate art and fiction lovers.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2007, American Library Association.)