My review of Under the Light of the Italian Moon by Jennifer Anton #HistoricalFiction #Italywwii #rememberwomen #BlogTour #CoffeePotBookClub @boldwomanwrites @maryanneyarde

 

Under the Light of the Italian Moon

By Jennifer Anton

A promise keeps them apart until WW2 threatens to destroy their love forever

Fonzaso Italy, between two wars.

Nina Argenta doesn’t want the traditional life of a rural Italian woman. The daughter of a strong-willed midwife, she is determined to define her own destiny. But when her brother emigrates to America, she promises her mother to never leave.

When childhood friend Pietro Pante briefly returns to their mountain town, passion between them ignites while Mussolini forces political tensions to rise. Just as their romance deepens, Pietro must leave again for work in the coal mines of America. Nina is torn between joining him and her commitment to Italy and her mother.

As Mussolini’s fascists throw the country into chaos and Hitler’s Nazis terrorise their town, each day becomes a struggle to survive greater atrocities. A future with Pietro seems impossible when they lose contact and Nina’s dreams of a life together are threatened by Nazi occupation and an enemy she must face alone…

A gripping historical fiction novel, based on a true story and heartbreaking real events.

Spanning over two decades, Under the Light of the Italian Moon is an epic, emotional and triumphant tale of one woman’s incredible resilience during the rise of fascism and Italy’s collapse into WWII.

Publication Date: 8th March 2021
Publisher: Amsterdam Publishers
Page Length: 394 Pages
Genre: Historical Fiction/Biographical Fiction

MY THOUGHTS

For some people, emigrating to America is the only way they can make enough money to feed their families. Nina Argenta is only ten when people around her start to leave, namely her friend Pietro Pante and her older brother. Her mother may be tough, the midwife of the area, but with one of her children moving overseas, she can’t help but feel like it is her fault – if only she’d paid more attention to him, spent more time with him. With her mother, so uncharacteristically, upset, Nina makes a promise – she would never leave her mother. For a ten-year-old, this is an easy promise, for why would she ever want to leave her mother? 

When Pietro returns many years later, Nina feels things she has never felt before – a need to be with the man that has returned in the place of the boy who left. However, it is Nina’s older sister who has come of age, so finding Nina a partner is not on her parent’s minds. Pietro has to leave before long, to return to America and his job, and neither Nina nor Pietro can forget about the other. But even as Nina grows, her mother holds onto the promise of a child, and Nina has to choose between following her heart or keeping her promise.

A novel of joy, heartbreak, and the struggle of trying to maintain a relationship through irregular and insufficient letters, Under the Light of the Italian Moon tells the story of Nina as she follows her mother's footsteps and creates her own family, throughout the rise of WWII.

Nina is what one can only call an incredibly strong character. With the love of her life living so far away and their only contact through letters, their relationship is bound to suffer. It is not that Nina doesn’t have things to do, but one cannot help but feel a deep sense of loneliness when the only one you want to be with cannot be there. This novel follows her life, from a young child, making impossible promises, to a woman, trying to escape the grasp her family has on her life and to navigate her way through a time where Mussolini is getting increasingly popular and knowing people living under Hitler’s control makes her feel uneasy about their safety.

Nina was her mother’s gift, sharing a birthday with her, but while Adelasia may have brought thousands of children into the world, Nina is the child who is relied upon too much. She is ten years old when she promises never to leave, and such a promise made by a child shouldn’t be taken seriously. At such an age, Nina had no idea of what she would want in the future and simply wanted to comfort her mother. While some of Adelasia’s actions can be understood, it seemed unfair to Nina for her mother to treat her in such a way. She greatly affected Nina’s life, for while she could have been in America with the one she loved, raising a family together, instead they are forced apart. At times, Adelasia came across as incredibly cold, and uncaring. She forces Nina to miss a festival to help with a birth, and when Nina is going through an incredibly emotional time, she sends her away to do a course that would cause increased pain and misery. I found it difficult to summon any sympathy for Adelasia to begin with, but as the story progressed, we get a more in-depth look into her life and start to see her in a more flattering light.

While none of the women in this novel are a part of the resistance, it is not as if they have nothing to resist – with the rise of fascism in the country and new ideas in the country, the women have difficult decisions to make. Adelasia must start being careful when telling women they shouldn’t have any more children, or how to prevent unwanted pregnancies due to a body unsuited to bearing children. Mussolini wanted people to have large families, and it was easy for the men to obey. It was the women who struggled in the background, giving birth and caring for young children, but they didn’t have a choice. As WWII intensifies around them, Nina struggles to keep her family safe as more soldiers appear around them and more people are killed, or worse.

This novel is enchanting, intriguing, and heartbreaking all in one. Nina’s story will captivate you and will not let you out of the spell until you have finished reading – until the early hours of the morning when the moon is gone and the sun has started to rise.

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Jennifer Anton

Jennifer Anton is an American/Italian dual citizen born in Joliet, Illinois and now lives between London and Lake Como, Italy. A proud advocate for women's rights and equality, she hopes to rescue women's stories from history, starting with her Italian family.

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