Review: Two Women in Rome by Elizabeth Buchan

Happy publication day to Two Women in Rome by Elizabeth Buchan, an atmospheric dual narrative mystery set in the beautiful Eternal City! Thanks to Readers First and Corvus Books for the gorgeous review copy. 

In the Eternal City, no secret stays hidden forever…

Lottie Archer arrives in Rome excited to begin her new job as an archivist. When she discovers a valuable fifteenth-century painting, she is drawn to find out more about the woman who left it behind, Nina Lawrence.

Nina seems to have led a rewarding and useful life, restoring Italian gardens to their full glory following the destruction of World War Two. So why did no one attend her funeral in 1978?

In exploring Nina’s past, Lottie unravels a tragic love story beset by the political turmoil of post-war Italy. And as she edges closer to understanding Nina, she begins to confront the losses in her own life.

The story follows Lottie, a newlywed archivist who impulsively accepts a job in Rome. Her first project concerns the papers of Nina Lawrence, a British ex-pat who died in mysterious circumstances with seemingly no friends or family. When Lottie tries to find out more about Nina she is met with hostility and resistance at every turn. Just who was Nina? Why wasn’t her death investigated? And what is it that Lottie isn’t supposed to find out?

This book was a bit of a slow starter for me, but I only say this to urge anyone who feels the same to keep reading! It’s not as light a read as the cover leads you to believe, but once I got into it something clicked and I couldn’t put it down. It’s rather heavy on descriptions of Rome (a dusty, scorching, stunning place) and it’s religious and political history, and I found myself having to reread pages to take everything in, but the characters had me gripped. Almost immediately we realise that everyone has a secret, something past or present that they’re trying to conceal, and I was constantly trying to put the pieces together along with Lottie to figure out what not only what actually happened to Nina all those years ago, but what her new friends and colleagues were keeping from her in the present. As expected Rome is a character in itself, majestic on the surface with a dark underbelly, and you can feel the tension rising as the city hurtles towards a stifling summer of revelations. 

This is my first Elizabeth Buchan novel but it certainly won’t be my last!