Miss Garnet's Angel

From Publishers Weekly

Guardian angels have attained such trendy status in American popular fiction that it's refreshing to read Vickers, a writer from across the Atlantic, whose subtle depiction of a life touched by a heavenly spirit carries not a hint of clich‚. Her debut novel is an unpretentious gem of a book that charts the late coming-of-age of Miss Julia Garnet, a retired English schoolteacher who spends six months in Venice after her lifelong companion, Harriet, dies. Venice has a magical effect on reserved Julia: a dyed-in-the-wool Communist, she relaxes in her antipathy toward religion, and even begins to visit the local church. There, she becomes enamored of a series of paintings that tell the story of the Apocryphal book of Tobit, a tale that mixes elements of Judaism with the religion of Zoroaster. In the story, young Tobias travels to Medea, part of the Persian Empire, to collect a debt for his father, blind Tobit. He is accompanied on his journey by a hired guide who turns out to be the Angel Raphael. As Julia learns more about Tobias's trek, she embarks upon a soul-altering journey of her own. She falls in love with an art dealer, Carlo, and befriends Sarah and Toby, twins working on the restoration of a Venetian chapel. When Toby disappears suddenly, after discovering a priceless Renaissance painting, Julia finds out that neither Carlo nor the twins are exactly what they seem--but that the Angel Raphael's watchful spirit will help good prevail. (Feb.)Forecast: This touching novel, a sleeper hit in Britain, should win American fans eager for a treatment of religious themes without the gooey sentiment that often accompanies the topic of angels.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the

Hardcover edition.

Book Description

Stories magically unfold within this novel's irresistible tale of Miss Julia Garnet, a schoolteacher who decides, after the death of her longtime friend Harriet, to take an apartment for six months in Venice. Soon overwhelmed by the sheer beauty of the city and its magnificent art, Miss Garnet's English reserve begins to melt away. For the first time in her life she falls in love-with an art dealer named Carlo-and her once ordinary world is further transformed by a beautiful Italian boy, Nicco, and an enigmatic pair of twins engaged in restoring the fourteenth-century Chapel-of-the-Plague. Most affecting to Julia, though, is her discovery in a local church of panels depicting the ancient tale of Tobias and the Angel. As Julia unravels the story of Tobias's redemption, she too strives to recover losses-not just her own but also the priceless painting of an angel that goes mysteriously missing from the Chapel along with one of the twins restoring it. His name is Toby. And Miss Garnet herself may prove to be an angel, but nowhere in this haunting, beautifully textured and multilayered novel is anything quite what it appears to be. --This text refers to the

Hardcover edition.