Eternal

A love triangle is at the heart of Lisa Scottoline's historical novel Eternal (#1,001).  Set in Rome during the thirties and forties, it follows the lives and fortunes of Elisabetta, Marco and Sandro; best friends from their youth and destined to be marked by fortunes of war.

Marco is handsome and appealing, the son of a famous Italian cyclist and ardent Fascist.  He, too joins his future to the Fascist Party and becomes a rising star.  His best friend, Sandro, is from a well-to-do Jewish family long established in Rome.  Sandro is a mathematical genius and has been accepted as a high school student into an independent study program under a brilliant professor dubbed the "Einstein of Italy".  His star is seemingly on the rise.  Both Marco and Sandro are in love with Elisabetta, a lively girl from Trastevere with ambitions to become a novelist or journalist.  The trio are inseparable until jealousy and the politics of the time tear them apart through Fascist Race Laws and their alliance with the Nazis.

Elisabetta's mentor asks her what her favorite books are about.  Her answer?  Families and love.  That simple description suits Eternal to a T.  I found it engrossing, this story of unrest and war told through the eyes of ordinary people.  Marco, Sandro and Elisabetta's network of family and friends make for a fascinating cast, adding their narratives as events progress.

Ms. Scottoline sorts out the facts from the fiction at the end of the book and provides guidance for future reading, should you wish to know more.  And please tell me you weren't craving some form of pasta by the time you finished this book!

My one quibble with this book, and it's a small one, is I wish that the editors had decided to italicize all the foreign words (Italian, Latin, German) instead of bolding them.  It would have been far less intrusive, and the dialogue intended to be emphasized would have stood out more.