Review: A very easy, but interesting read ---
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 05 13, 2013
The story begins in 2011 - Benedetta, an Italian from Casalveri, is now living in Florida.  She has known great joy in her life, but also tragedy.  Benedetta has just buried her husband of fifty one years and she begins to reminisce on her life many years earlier.  1943 - the Second World War came to Casalveri, a small village in Italy.  The Germans arrived one fall morning and took control of the village without a single shot being fired.  The Germans would be taking over small villages along an East and West line across Italy.  And the story begins ----Benedetta has become the head of the household when her father leaves them to find a hiding place in the mountains.  Their home has become the headquarters for the Germans.  She has two younger siblings to look after and she prepares meals for the Germans.The Germans did not consider the Italian people human.  In their eyes they were lower beings.  They forced the Italian civilians into the hardest, most dangerous jobs on the front, carrying ammunition, gasoline, and retrieving the wounded.  They saw the Italians as a good way to conserve their own forces.  Better an Italian die on the front then a German.  The Italians were told that for every German soldier who dies, ten of them (Italians) would be executed.There is a lot of intrigue in the storyline during the German occupation of Italy.  But, it read like a YA novel - just a very easy and interesting read (although I wouldn't recommend it for a young teen).  I stayed engaged from the beginning and throughout.A couple of negative comments:  The characters had very little depth.  I didn't connect with them.  Also, the story ended very abruptly, almost like the writer ran out of steam.  For that reason I rated this book 3.5 stars.