Our book club's reviews as follows

Yvonne
A well written novel with vivid descriptions of the Tuscan property and landscape. I particularly enjoyed the historical aspect and the mystery and intrigue surrounding the events associated with the Fascist era.The tensions within the family on several levels were well depicted but I did not find the main characters to be particularly interesting especially as the story unfolded.The ending was intriguing and left a sense of betrayal.
An enjoyable read all in all. I give it 8.

Carolyn
I found it difficult to get into this book. There were lots of bits that weren't interesting. The parts set in the 2nd World War were ok but there wasn't enough story for the length of the book. It felt like the writer had an idea for the book but hadn't developed it.

I give it 2

Margaret
Found this book easy to read and loved it being set in Italy
Found the characters believable but it was strangely dissatisfying in that it lacked understanding of the motivation of most of the Italian cast
6/10

Eve
Apologies for the fact that yet again, I have failed to finish this book. I read for a while, kept re-starting, but just could not get involved.
It seemed easy enough to read, but for the life of me, I could not find a story. It seemed to me to be a cross between a travelogue and a history of Mussolini, neither of which were of interest to me. I will be interested in the opinions of others, maybe I should try again.
I would only give a score of 3, but not really fair to register this as I don’t feel I read enough

Chris
I am really enjoying this book, I thought before I started it that it might be hard going as it didn't seem to be plot based but I got into it straight away. The characters are well described and it was interesting to find out about Italian history and the landscape.
I will give it 8

Gill
I did enjoy reading Who owns the story .
It was in parts a dreamy read of the demise of a grand Italian family but the ending of the story was disappointing
It was almost a quick conclusion!
But I’ll still give it 7

Mabe
On the whole the book held my attention. I did love the fact that it was set in Italy the description of the countryside took my thoughts back to that beautiful scenery, the Italian history in the Second World War was also interesting . I enjoyed the story of the demise from being a wealthy powerful aristocratic family to having nothing. I liked the description of family members and felt for poor Uncle Sandro so harshly treated by his father and brother.

For me a disappointing ending . Because of that I mark it a 5.

Steph
This is a book I should have like but gave up at page 124. It wasn't a very long book, but it couldn't keep me engaged .

Arleen
Well, not sure what to say about this book.
The start of the book reads more like a
travelogue, but then I got more into the story. I enjoyed the story but found I got lost when there was a time change. It wasn't always easy to know which person was writing it. Because of this I will only give it a 5/10

Sonia
I really enjoyed this book and it kept me engaged throughout. The descriptions of the Italian locations were very evocative and the storyline during the war years was interesting and informative. Above all it was a story of friendship that endured over the years but faltered badly at the end - mainly due to the intervention of third parties. A typical misunderstanding that could have been righted with better and more direct communication. I found it sad that it came to the ending that it did. A well written and thought provoking story for me. I give it 7 out of 10.

The average score was between 5.5 and 6 out of 10.