In My Lady’s Shadow by Siobhan Daiko

In My Lady’s Shadow is set in Italy near the town of Asolo. It is a time-slip novel, present day 1989 and past date of 1504. Fern is holidaying with her aunt when she begins to have dreams of another time. They become more frequent and begin to take the format of visions.

Cecilia was a lady’s maid to Queen Caterina Cornaro. She enjoyed art and fell in love with a young artist called Zorzo, but she was destined to marry another. It seems that Cecilia is a restless spirit who has an unknown purpose by making contact with Fern.

Fern becomes friends with Luca, a local architect and his mother Contessa Goredon. While the Contessa researches her family, Luca takes delight in showing Fern the local sights and tries to help her solve the mystery behind her visions.

The time-slips back to 1504 work really well, I enjoyed meeting Cecilia in her own time and getting a little more of her story with each time-slip. However I didn’t connect with the present day characters. I particularly wanted Luca to be more Italian in his manner, more suave and a deeper romantic. With their English connections through marriage, education or birth, all the present day main characters were out-siders to the area and didn’t quite fit for me.

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