Anna’s Shadow by Ingrid McCarthy

Reviewed by Tim Niedermann

In Verona, Italy, there is an organization called the Club di Giulietta—Juliet’s Club—which for decades has answered thousands of letters from people who have written to Shakespeare’s Juliet for advice in their love lives. The people who write the responses are volunteers, “Juliet’s secretaries.”

This sounds like a perfect backdrop for a heartstring-tugging romance novel, but award-winning writer Ingrid McCarthy has something different in mind (although, as Rose D. Franklyn, she has written a number of standard romance novels herself).

Anna’s Shadow starts off with one of Juliet’s secretaries, Sofia, being handed a note to answer because it is from Canada, as she is. Sofia, who narrates most of the book, is a doctor with Doctors without Borders and is taking time to recover from a recent, violent stint in Africa where her co-worker and lover, Claude, was brutally killed. She volunteers at Julia’s Club on a whim, to give herself something to do.

Sofia is staying with her father’s sister, Elena. Sofia’s parents, both originally from Verona, are also there. They are looking to buy a house in the neighbouring countryside to retire to.

The letter is from a man, whose name is, coincidentally, Romeo. Romeo is writing on behalf of his father, Luke Miller, whose sight is failing and thus cannot write for himself. Luke, then Lukas Müller, was an eighteen-year-old German soldier based in Verona in the waning days of World War II. During a raid on a building that allegedly housed anti-Fascist partisans, he became captivated by the portrait of a girl about his age with penetrating blue eyes he saw on the wall. Luke later encountered the girl, whose name he learned was Anna, and saved her from capture. But then he lost contact with her. Now, decades later, Luke wants to find the girl again.

Sofia replies with a friendly but noncommittal letter, but she is intrigued by Luke’s story and decides she will do what she can to find Anna. Romeo had given her the name of the street she lived on but no other information, not even her last name. Luck seems to be on Sofia’s side, however. And she, with the help of her father, a former Montreal policeman, is able to find out the girl’s last name and the addresses of two women with that name.

Sofia writes back to Luke to tell him what she has found, and soon Luke and Romeo arrive in Verona to try to find Anna.

Sofia’s first-person sections alternate with a third-person narrative of Luke’s time in Verona during the war. Luke was a mechanic for the chauffeur-driven limousines of senior German officers, so he was not near any of the fighting. Still, the war was not far away, and it weighed heavily on the minds of Luke and his companions. McCarthy conveys the doubts and fears of this young soldier realistically, giving a new dimension to Luke for the reader.

The search for Anna moves along rapidly, with ups and downs, confusion and frustration, but also luck. Other interested people join the hunt, for their own reasons. Much of what happens is so unlikely, so unexpected, so unpredictable, and, along the way, Sofia muses about this: do things only happen by chance? Is it mere luck, or is it destiny? McCarthy also delves into the relationships among the personalities in the search for Anna, and, in their interactions, much is revealed about the multiple ways a person can love and be loved.

A very charming, very rewarding adventure, Anna’s Shadow is published by R.D. Franklyn Books.