Early One Morning - Virginia Baily

Chiara Ravello has had a rough time, with her mother killed by a bomb, her partner taken away and her adult sister suffering fits.  She is intending to leave occupied Rome, when she  takes a walk early one morning  in 1943.  She comes across a group of Jews being rounded up into trucks by German soldiers and a quick glance changes her life, as she is passed a young seven year old boy.

So she then has to escape the city with her sister and this wee boy, to head to their grandmothers farm to seek refuge.  We also encounter Chiara as an elderly woman, when she is contacted by a young woman from Cardiff, seeking information about a young man who she thinks may be her father.  This allows us to fill in the gaps about what happened in the previous years.

I loved the premise of this book, but I found myself wanting to love it more.  Somehow I didn't quite click with the characters, I felt it lacked a little bit of emotion as somehow I expected to be moved to tears, but wasn't.  3/5