Playing with Fire
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4.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $15.99
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
'I defy you to read the first chapter and not singe your fingers reading all the rest. It’s that compelling. It’s that good.' David Baldacci
WHAT IF YOUR CHILD WANTED YOU DEAD?
Julia is terrified by her daughter's aggressive behaviour. Lily has changed from an angelic little girl into someone she is afraid to be alone with.
What scares Julia most, though, is that she knows why Lily is acting this way, but no-one will believe her. If she is going to help Lily, she will have to find the answers alone, embarking on a search that will take her to the shadowy back streets of Venice.
There Julia finds far more than just answers, and uncovers a heartbreaking, long-buried tale of tragedy and devastation.
And this discovery has put her in serious danger . . .
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
On a trip to Rome, violinist Julia Ansdell, the narrator of this haunting standalone from bestseller Gerritsen (The Bone Garden), buys an old music book titled Gypsy from an antique shop. Inside the book, on a loose sheet of paper, is a handwritten waltz, Incendio, by one L. Todesco. Back home in Boston, Julia plays Incendio on her violin, but doing so appears to set off a series of calamities, starting with the death of the family cat, that upset her relationships with her husband, Rob, and their three-year-old daughter, Lily. Julia subsequently travels to Venice, to try to learn more about the music and its Jewish composer, Lorenzo Todesco. Flashbacks spanning 1938 to 1944 chronicle Lorenzo's tragic story, in particular his romance with Catholic Laura Balboni, as the Fascist regime's ever harsher anti-Semitic laws tear families and friends apart. Gerritsen movingly depicts Julia's search, which has some surprising repercussions and builds to a satisfying crescendo.
