The Lost Madonna (Paperback)

by Kelly Jones (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist
Suzanne Cunningham, an art-history professor living in Idaho, is thrilled when she is invited to lecture at a university in Florence. Suzanne has an intense connection with the city. In November of 1966, Suzanne, 19, was visiting Florence when the now-infamous flood occurred. She stays to help with the recovery of precious artwork from the Uffizi, a decision that changes her life. She falls in love with both a painting, a haunting fifteenth-century portrait of the madonna and child, and a man, sensual art restorer Stefano Leonetti. Still enamored of both after all this time, Suzanne is shocked when she reads a journal article that claims that the painting was lost in the flood. Knowing that to be false, Suzanne begins an investigation that brings her past back into the foreground, including a secret she's been guarding carefully. Jones' vivid descriptions of Florence, and the involving story, will captivate art and fiction lovers. Kristine Huntley
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
Kelly Jones is a wonderful writer, and definitely one to watch. -- Nicholas Sparks

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Berkley (February 6, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0425214192
• ISBN-13: 978-0425214190
• Product Dimensions: 6.5 x 4.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,049,048 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars a totally wonderful story, July 3, 2009

By	Stephanie Cowell (New York, New York United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is one of the novels I love best; I have read it three or four times. The plot, the setting and the characters are vibrant, touching and altogether first rate. I am a novelist myself ("Marrying Mozart" from Viking Penguin and a new one on Claude Monet coming soon from Crown) and the novels I want to fall into again and again are a great treasure to me.

I love the novel's world of Florence 30 years ago during the flood where the heroine was one of the "mud angels" who help rescue the deluged art and her current return there as an art professor. She returns full of memories of a love affair with a young married Italian art restorer and of a small, precious Renaissance painting which she helped restore long ago and which has been reported missing. Her American marriage has ended and to her great sorrow, she is childless. Possible love enters her life in the form of a widowed doctor who is partially crippled with polio. Though she is drawn to this kind though touchy man, she is also compelled to find out why both her former lover and the little painting of the Madonna have disappeared and goes in search of both.

Buy it!!

4.0 out of 5 stars Setting wins over story, October 24, 2008

By	bookczuk (Charleston, SC) - See all my reviews

I really liked this book-- not so much for the story, as for the setting in one of my absolute favorite cities and for the glimpse into the world of art history and restoration.

4.0 out of 5 stars Bittersweet tale..., November 1, 2007

By	Deborah Wiley (Winter Haven, FL) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Professor Suzanne Cunningham hasn't returned to Italy since the flood of 1966. She is thrilled when an old friend offers her the opportunity to teach art history in Florence, and begins preparing for the courses she will teach. Much to her surprise, she finds a reference to a painting she helped restore after the flood, a painting that is now listed as lost in that very same flood. Suzanne will have to travel back into her past memories to a time when her love for art restorer Stefano Leonetti inspired her current love of art itself. Suzanne will have to face her past in order to move on with her future....

THE LOST MADONNA is really two tales in one. First, it is the slow unwinding of what really happened on Suzanne's first journey to Italy as a young nineteen year old. Her experiences as a "mud angel", rescuing art during the flood, are just as important as her affair and love for Stefano at that time. Suzanne has lived a life shadowed by the events of her past and it is only now, as a middle aged woman, that she is venturing back to face what transpired. The second portion of the tale, interwoven with the revelations of past events, is Suzanne's journey back to love. Never has Suzanne loved another since Stefano, but Dr. Roberto Balducci touches something deep inside of Suzanne. Can she learn to love again?

THE LOST MADONNA is a compelling although sometimes meandering tale. There were moments when I was frustrated by the story's slow pace and yet Kelly Jones steadily drew me into the storyline so that I had to know how it would all end. Perhaps the most intriguing aspects were the glimpses, both past and present, which the author gave of Italy. The city of Florence is almost a character itself and Kelly Jones brings it to vivid life through her beautiful descriptions. THE LOST MADONNA is a bittersweet tale that will leave the reader with mixed emotions as the story concludes.

COURTESY OF CK2S KWIPS AND KRITIQUES