Rosie’s #Bookreview Team #RBRT Art #Mystery LOST CHILDREN by Willa Bergman

Today’s team review is from Robbie. She blogs here https://robbiesinspiration.wordpress.com/

Robbie has been reading Lost Children by Willa Bergman

This book is quite an interesting tale about a young woman, Eloise Witcham who works for an international firm that specialises in auctioning famous artworks. Eloise, or Elle, works in the smaller branch of private sales which is not doing particularly well under its current leadership. There is anxiety among the employees as they are concerned about retrenchments. Elle is the only one who is meeting her sales targets and she has also managed to build the start of a reputation as an investigator into missing artworks on behalf of selected private clients. Among her peers, Elle is the odd person out as she does not come from a well-off background and has to stand on her own two feet financially while caring for her mother who has dementia and her brother who is not able to hold down a job.

Elle is engaged by the representative of a trust to look for an artwork called the Lost Child which went missing fifteen years previously. Elle takes the commission for her own reasons and runs into a lot of problems while searching for this piece. All sorts of secrets and surprises come to the fore during her investigation which takes her from London to New York.

The storyline of this book was interesting, and I do enjoy novels that centre around artworks, especially stolen artworks. The telling of the story was not as good for me as the plot. The writing was quite flat in many parts and some of the behaviour’s demonstrated by Elle felt a bit unrealistic and unconvincing. Her character is portrayed as being someone who has secrets in her past and terrors as a result, so her erratic behaviour could potentially be attributed to mental instability due to her past circumstances and current stress. The behaviour of her competitor, Geoffrey Webb, also seemed a bit extreme, but art works are worth a lot of money so that could explain it. It just didn’t work that well for me and left me questioning certain aspects of the story.

I did enjoy the office politics and intrigue relating to the world of art auctions and sales and appreciated the insecurity and competitiveness among employees in this field. Readers can form their own opinion about whether desperation to earn commissions and a fear of dismissal would be grounds for corporate espionage and even murder in this world.

A celebrated painting, the Portrait of the Lost Child, has been missing for over a decade. Eloise Witcham is commissioned to find it, but if she does she will have to confront a past she thought long behind her and face up to the dark fears that still haunt her dreams.

A stylish, intelligent, contemporary thriller set in the secretive world of high end art.

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Rosie’s #Bookreview Of #ContemporaryRomance FINDING EDWARD by @SuzMcKLink #TuesdayBookBlog

Finding Edward by Suzanne McKenna Link

4.5 stars

Finding Edward is a contemporary romance, although it is the third book in this series it easily reads as a stand-alone. Eddie’s grandmother recently died and left the contents of her estate to be divided three ways; Eddie, his mum and his brother. Each of them also received a personal letter with a last wish for them to fulfil. Growing up was hard, money was tight and school was a challenge. Eddie’s first love was art, but it was only his grandmother who encouraged him to follow his dreams.

Her letter to Eddie involved a long-kept secret which his mother was left to reveal; the man he thought of as his father was not his biological parent. Eddie’s grandmother sets him two tasks; go to Positano, Italy to search for his father, and use his inheritance to enrol in art college. For years. Eddie
had put aside his love of art and taken a more conventional job, and he’d never strayed far from home; a trip to Italy would test his comfort zone to its limits.

The ups and downs of Eddie’s search for his father were believable as was the romantic theme, but it was the author’s creation of vibrant characters and beautiful Italian settings which made this book come alive. They took me right to the Amalfi coast and I could almost taste the coffee, hear the
Italian spoken and see the amazing landscapes. The Italians insisted on calling him Edward or Eduardo and the name artistically fitted the story as it progressed. I loved how Edward’s love of art was reignited and how helpful and welcoming the people of Positano were. It made me want to pack
my bags and book my own holiday. If you want a piece of escapism reading in an idyllic setting, then I can highly recommend this book.

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When Edward’s beloved grandmother dies, she doesn’t just leave behind money. His inheritance includes a father he never knew he had.

Now he’s forced to navigate a country he doesn’t know, using a language he doesn’t speak, in search of a man who has no clue Edward even exists.

He’s expecting disappointment, he’s expecting anger, he’s expecting pain. But what Edward isn’t expecting is to stumble across the one woman to ever steal his heart … the one woman he can never have.

Edward’s past and future collide, leaving him more lost — and more alive than he’s ever felt before.

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