From present-day Viareggio to Glasgow during World War II, a multigenerational sweeping tale of love lost, family secrets, and reconciliation over generations and decades, from New York Times bestselling author Adriana Trigiani.
Matelda Roffo is dying and no one knows it. Not her loving husband, or her large family. But she has stories to tell before she goes. Urgent stories she wants to tell her daughter and favorite granddaughter: the father she never knew, timely lessons from a war-time love affair, and beautiful fables and jewels passed from generations of Cabrellis, the jewelers in her family.
Virareggio 1920: Domenica Cabrelli is leaving the small village she has known her whole life to join the Sacred Heart convent in Marseilles. The world is changing around her—the threat of war hangs in the air, things are worsening in Italy—but in the midst of growing darkness, a man enters her life: John Lawrie McVicars, a Captain and Scotsman, who wiil be swept up in the history swirling around them, changing Domenica's life forever.
What happens next is a love story that will forever change the Cabrellis, as well as the shocking fate of Italians in Scotland during World War II. Meanwhile, in the present, Matelda is running out of time...
The Good Left Undone is a deeply felt, and utterly absorbing, family novel that brings this Italian family, and its history, to life. It is a loving portrait of women, and their sacrifices, across generations, and a hopeful look to the future.
