The Night Falling

I love her work. This one wasn't as good as her earlier works, but is certainly worth reading.

I didn't quite finish this book but it has been a good read so far. It has had me interested in the plot and characters. I will finish it this summer, to find out what happens to them next.

Katherine Webb always weaves a good tale. This one was somewhat depressing but still captivating. Having knowledge of that area and having seen people live hand to mouth with little hope made this story a little too real for me. However, it was a gripping plot with vivid reality of time and place. Waiting for Webb's next book.

Unlike all her other books, this one is about misery and poverty and cruelty (no spoilers, this is clear in the first page or two), and the plot isn't worth it. Disappointingly heavy and horrible.

Love love reading all of Katherines webb books nothing else to say just good reading

I've enjoyed many books by Katherine Webb but this one was not one of them.

It's 1921, a few years after the Great War. Clare Kingsley isn't happy when she and Pip have to join her husband, Boyd, in Italy. Clare is Boyd's second wife and Pip isn't officially her son, but their bond is very strong. Boyd is an architect and he is in Gioia in Puglia to design a building for Leandro Cardetta. Leandro is a rich and dangerous businessman who has made his fortune in America. Together with his wife Marcie he's returned to his homeland.Even though Leandro's home is luxurious Clare isn't happy at all that she and Pip are in Gioia. There's so much tension between the rich and the poor. There are so many men who are looking for low paid jobs where they have to slave away in poor conditions just to put some food on the table. They're always hungry and when there's no work they don't have anything to eat. Leandro's nephew Ettore is one of these workmen. After an accident he has to stay with Leandro, but he doesn't want to have anything to do with his uncle and doesn't want his money. At home there are people who need to eat, so he reluctantly agrees to work for Leandro for a while. He's grieving because his beautiful fiancé was murdered and he wants to avenge her death. Meeting Clare changes him, but unfortunately she has no power to get him out of the situation he's in.There's something going on between Leandro and Boyd. Clare wants to know how Leandro became such a rich man and why he's chosen Boyd to design his building. There are too many secrets and she sure about one thing, she and Pip aren't safe. They can't return to England, so they're forced to live with Leandro and Marcie for the entire summer. It's going to be a summer that will change everyone forever.The Night Falling is a beautiful story about impossible love, war, secrets and the differences between rich and poor. It's a long story that requires some time and peace and quiet to read. I never wanted it to end and I fell in love with this book immediately. The setting is perfect, I could picture the isolated Italian countryside where there's nothing to do very well. Clare often goes for a walk, because she wants to escape the oppressive atmosphere at home. It was amazing to see her grow and to watch her bravery. Ettore is such a wonderful man, but he's stuck in a life that's hard and difficult. So many of the people he loved have died and it never stops. Clare is from another world and even though she doesn't know this hard life she understands him very well.I can't express enough how much I enjoyed reading this book. The writing's beautiful and every sentence is right. So much is happening and the author has managed to make me feel the tension, the atmosphere is oppressive and it's inevitable that something really bad is going to happen. The finale's really good and unexpected, I liked it a lot. I highly recommend this book, it's one of the best stories I've ever read.

Leandro Cardetta, born into abject poverty in Puglia, has made a fortune in America and subsequently returned to his childhood home with a glamorous and rather spoilt wife, Marcie. There he sets about restoring a crumbling palazzo helped by well-known English architect, Boyd Kingsley, who brings with him his teenage son Pip and his second wife, the rather shy and retiring Clare.Outside the comfort and comparative luxury of the palazzo, the men labour to cultivate the unyielding land under the blazing sun of southern Italy. Veterans of the Great War, they returned to their homeland with promises of some land and a living wage, but instead are faced with minimal wages and harsh overseers. The landowners feel under threat because of the rather futile socialist attempts to organise the workforce, and turn to the fascists for support with predictably violent consequences. Leandro’s nephew, Ettore, is one of these starving poor with the additional grief of mourning his fiancée who was brutally raped and died as a result of her injuries. Ettore is too proud to ask his rich uncle for help until an injury leaves him no choice; it is either turn to Leandro for help or see his sister and baby nephew starve. When Webb brings all these characters together under one roof, as she does at the beginning of the novel, you know it can’t end well.In fact, the whole novel positively seethes with tension throughout. Webb’s depiction of the social and political atmosphere of the time is masterful. At times, it makes for an uncomfortable read, as she describes in graphic detail the hardships endured by the local workers and their families and the brutality of the punishments inflicted on the rebellious workers by the fascisti. Without any doubt, this is a gripping read. There are so many questions that need to be answered and so many characters who have things to hide. How did Cardetta make his money in America? What is the hold that he has over Boyd? Why is he so insistent that Clare and Pip stay in Italy despite the growing threat of violence? It would be a good enough read if it was just a thrilling story but it is also a very well written one, full of powerful description and imagery.Puglia is a part of Italy I have always wanted to visit, without knowing much about it, other than that it is home to those charming looking whitewashed trullo houses which feature prominently in any tourist brochure. Katherine Webb’s novel, drawing heavily on real events, teaches you much about the area’s history and it feels as if it would be a very wise thing to have read up about the history before you visit. It is difficult to believe that such a relatively recent troubled past should not have left its scars in the landscape and in the mindset of its people and I, for one, will tread more respectfully when I do visit for having read this novel.

This is a love story set in the 1920's in the Puglia region of Italy. It was a time when the peasantry were struggling to survive in the face of the hostile indifference of the landowners and the brutality of the emerging fascist party. This being so, it includes much that is miserable, cruel and shocking within its pages and some will no doubt find the novel upsetting.Personally, I thought there was far too much focus on the two main characters' inner thoughts and feelings while other characters were under-developed. I grew tired of wading through pages and pages of the main protagonists' inner turmoil while the action stalled. The plot developed too slowly for my liking and I would have abandoned it part-way through had I not holidayed in Puglia a couple of years ago. When I went there I thought it a beautiful, relaxing holiday destination and this novel was a real eye-opener to the hardship that existed there in the relatively recent past.I have read other novels by this author and rated them highly. This one was different in tone to the others and to my mind it was less entertaining.

Set in 1921, Clare Kingsley arrives in Puglia with her fifteen year old stepson Pip to join her husband Boyd, an architect who has been commissioned by wealthy landowner Leandro Cardetta, and who for some reason seems beholden to him. Leandro made his fortune in New York, and now married to ex-showgirl Marcie, has returned to his roots. However, tensions are rife in Puglia; the age old conflict between landowners and peasants close to crisis point. For Leandro's nephew Ettore Tarano, it is a daily struggle merely to provide enough food for his sister, baby nephew and ageing father; day after day spent out on the fields in gruelling labour to earn but a pittance, whilst internally he battles with grief over his dead fiancé, killed after a brutal attack and whose attacker Ettore has sworn to exact revenge upon. When circumstances force Ettore to accept help from his Uncle, the paths of all these individuals converge in one shocking summer; a summer where old secrets will be exposed, loyalties tested, lives changed and blood shed.A fan of Webb's previous books, I have to say I thought she excelled herself with this story; the insight she gives into the lives of the peasants, their hardships and struggles, the despair and desperation of their circumstances is profound in its depiction, and makes this a powerful read, and one that will stay with you long after the pages are all turned. Furthermore, I was fascinated to learn more of this period in history and the political strife that followed in Italy after the war. Webb is able to sharply contrast the lives of Ettore and his family who all his reside together in one single room, with that of Leandro and Marcie, and the sheer excess and indulgence with which they live. Leandro himself, a man who has risen greatly from the life he was born into, is a wonderfully complex and ambiguous character, and perhaps the only person who is able to understand both sides of this war that rages between landowners and workers.All the central characters are fleshed out, all of them flawed, yet perhaps all the more real because of it; as a reader you can understand their weaknesses because you understand what drives and motivates them, their insecurities and fears. The layout of the book is such that the chapters alternate from the point of view of Clare and Ettore; such that these two characters provide the heart and soul of the story. Furthermore, the love story that emerges between them is heartfelt and raw; one that you sense from the very outset is doomed, but which amongst all the rising tensions and harshness of everything around is like a ray of light and hope.As well as the unfolding crisis in Puglia and developing relationship between Clare and Ettore, the reader is tantalized with the past mystery of Boyd's first wife, and the exact nature of the hold Leandro seems to have on him; the story fleshed out with snippets from the past, with the air of something sinister teased at throughout, and as a reader you are left guessing exactly which characters to trust.Out of all the characters, Clare perhaps is the one who changes the most; entering the story as a meek and mild wife, accustomed to her ordinary life, afraid almost of the wider world around her, but in Puglia her eyes are opened. She describes herself as almost having been asleep before she came to Puglia and met Ettore; and once awakened she begins to emerge as a much stronger character. Ettore was probably my favourite character; as a reader you got such a sense of the sheer weariness of his soul that he was quite heartbreaking. Even smaller secondary characters, however, are wonderfully depicted, from Ettore's best friend Pino, able to smile even amongst the bleakest circumstances, to his sister Paulo, steely and hardened.Webb always does a fantastic job of slowly letting feelings and tensions simmer just under the surface, a rising sense of threat and danger in her stories, until that climax where everything boils over; and this is no exception. Indeed its almost as if all the characters are placed in a crucible; and as a reader you have to wait till the end to see how they emerge. As such the pace of the story is generally quite sedate, yet all the time you can sense it building; almost not wanting it to reach that end point, which when it comes is devastating.A truly absorbing and arresting story, that tugs at the heartstrings and transports you entirely into another time and place.

I looked forward to reading this book but it certainly was not as I expected. I can't say that I enjoyed it, although I gave it 4 stars as it is well written, but I found it compelling even though at times very depressing. The poverty of the region and brutality cannot be denied and the story set in this period of history makes moving and difficult reading. However I was still not drawn into the characters. I found Clare rather irritating and her knowledge of Italian must have been excellent to have the in depth conversations she had with Ettore in a dialect!! There was a twist in the story at the end and I have to admit to being rather relieved to have finished the book.

I have loved all of Katherine Webb's books and was thrilled to find this one - sadly that thrill did not last. I had great difficulty in getting into the book. The opening chapter (a look into the future) was promising but I soon lost my enthusiasm. The flitting backwards and forwards between characters became annoying. I had no empathy with Clare and found the dialogue between her and Marcia boring. I see from other reviews that things do 'wake up' later in the story but I am afraid I did not get that far. I have given 2 stars because there was obviously a lot of research done into the time and area in which the book is set. I am sad that I could give it no more than this.

Engrossing read about a time in history I know very little about! Katherine Webb takes the reader in to a story and at times I felt real anguish for the characters. The suffering she describes is harrowing, people surviving on the extreme edge of poverty I was drawn in to this book and am very glad I stuck with it because the beginning could be described as hard to get in to. Stick with it there is real depth to the characters, you want know what happens to them......... I have read all this authors novels and each one surprises me as to the originality of the themes in her books.I would recommend this excellent book . .