I love Laura Morelli’s novels, historical fiction which usually ties into art, especially in Italy. This one was so interesting, telling the stories of two women, an American woman sent to Italy to help itemize and protect the great works of art, and a German woman, working for the Reich as they “protected” the art of Florence as well. Their paths cross, of course! There are so many interesting details and facts in this novel that I felt like I learned a lot while reading. Laura Morelli has a blog where she shares interesting facts about Italy, art, and art history, too, if you are interested!

Thanks for my copy from Net Galley!

Go to Laura Morelli’s website at:

http://www.lauramorelli.com

Here’s the scoop:

Description

In a race across Nazi-occupied Italy, two women—a German photographer and an American stenographer—hunt for priceless masterpieces looted from the Florentine art collections.

In the summer of 1943, Eva Brunner is taking photographs of Nazi-looted art hidden in the salt mines of the Austrian hinterland. Across the ocean in Connecticut, Josephine Evans is working as a humble typist at the Yale Art Gallery.

When both women are called to Italy to contribute to the war effort, neither imagines she will hold the fate of some of the world’s greatest masterpieces torn from the Uffizi Galleries and other Florentine art collections in her hands.

But as Italy turns from ally to enemy and Hitler’s plan to destroy irreplaceable monuments and works of art becomes frighteningly clear, each woman’s race against the clock—and against one another—might demand more than they were prepared to give.

The Last Masterpiece takes readers on a heart-pumping adventure up the Italian peninsula, where nothing is as it seems and some of the greatest works of art and human achievement are at stake. Who might steal and who might save a work of art—and at what cost?

Inspired by the incredible true story of the Monuments Women, the Fifth Army WACs, and the looted Florentine art collections during World War II, the latest historical novel by USA Today bestselling author and art historian Laura Morelli plunges readers into the heart of war-torn Italy.