The Photograph is a gentle story equally divided among Sophie and Rachael. In Italy, 1958, Rachael is a young widow with a small child. She's currently in a small village of Italy while accompanying her father while is runs an archaeological dig. Just widowed, Rachael has borne a young daughter. She fell in love that following summer for young Tommaso. This beautiful love only brought her heartache, however.

In England, 2017, Sophie is a successful anthropologist, with a loving husband and a beautiful home. She has it all, except for the one desire she has thus been unable to fulfill, that of having a child. This drive has begun to drive a wedge between Sophie and her husband Hamish. Sophie's desire to mother has become crucial to her happiness, even at the expense of her once happy marriage. Finding a picture of her grandmother Rachael as a young woman might just prove to be just the distraction that Sophie needs. Never would she have imagined that also throwing herself into her work might expose an amazing link to her grandmother.

Oh how my heart broke for Rachael, especially when her father told her, "Sometimes, Rachael, sometimes...love, is just not enough." Then later he tells her, "Love does not hurt forever. I know." Oh, poor Rachael. Oh I cried. I had just as many tears for Sophie, for her tries, for her losses and for her ultimate happiness.

I am drawn to titles from this publisher. I have been since joining NetGalley. I mention that here because, truthfully, without such, this magnificent title would have most definitely slipped through my fingers. I completely connected not only to Rachael and Sophie and to their tender stories, but also to the other characters, such as George, Tommaso, among others. So, I said magnificent. Why so? The telling of both stories was done quite excellently. Going from past to present to back again was always presented with such ease. I was truly enthralled with this captivating story.

Many thanks to Debby Rix, Bookouture and NetGalley for this ARC to review in exchange for my honest opinion.

Date of publication: June 27, 2018 ( )

Sweet book. Characters were real and remained consistent. A fun summer read. ( )

The Photograph has two things that I love in a book. The first is a dual timeline story and the other is an Italian setting. So I was sold, as they say.

In the 1950s Rachael flees her home in Hungary with her father. They end up in a camp in Austria before moving to London where her father takes an archaeology post. His work then takes them to Sardinia, a beautiful Italian island, where Rachael falls in love with a local man.

Then in 2017, Rachael's granddaughter, Sophie, has all that she could wish for except for one thing: a child. As is often the case, her intense desire for a baby causes fissures to appear in other aspects of her life. But she's an anthropologist and she starts to take comfort in looking into her great-grandfather's work.

I found Rachael's story much stronger than Sophie's. I often tend to prefer the more current story in books such as this as I like the way that secrets of the past can be uncovered, but Sophie's story, for me, didn't get going until quite a long way into the book when she starts to find out more about her great-grandfather's work and discovers the photograph in the title. Rachael's story, however, was quite tragic, really moving and she really went through the mill. I liked her character a lot, as well as her father, George. If I'm honest, I would have liked the two strands to be more closely woven together, but I still enjoyed reading both women's stories and found their experiences interesting.

I loved the author's descriptions of Sardinia. I want to go there now! It really captured my imagination and sounded idyllic. The time that Rachael and George spent there was probably my favourite part of the book.

Towards the end I was really moved by a couple of events and a tear came to my eye. The Photograph is a bittersweet story of love and loss which will most definitely appeal to the romantics amongst us. ( )