Borrow per 43 days

On a hilltop in Umbria sits Valetto. Once a thriving village and a hub of resistance and refuge during World War II, centuries of earthquakes, landslides and the lure of a better life have left it neglected. Only ten residents remain, including the widows Serafino - three eccentric sisters and their steely centenarian mother - who live quietly in their medieval villa. Then their nephew and grandson, Hugh, a historian, returns. But someone else has arrived before him, laying claim to the cottage where Hugh spent his childhood summers. The unwelcome guest is the captivating and no-nonsense Elisa Tomassi, who asserts that the family patriarch, Aldo Serafino, a resistance fighter whom her own family harboured, gave the cottage to them in gratitude. Like so many threads of history, this revelation unravels a secret, a betrayal, a disappearance and an unspeakable act of violence that has impacted Valetto across generations. Who will answer for the crimes of the past?