Review of 'The Secret Diary of Rome' by M A McLaughlin
Release date: September 1st, 2026
Publisher: Joffe Books
REVIEW
Review coming soon!
What the book is about:
A hidden diary. A story that’s waited a hundred years to be told . . .
Italy, 1960
Emilia Rinaldi arrives in Rome to claim an inheritance from a grandmother she never met.
All she knows is that the mysterious terms of the will require her presence in the city. And that a torn page from a diary, found in her late mother’s music box, appears to come from the lost diary of Lizzie Siddal, the tragic pre-Raphaelite muse, and wife of Dante Gabriel Rossetti.
But the inheritance is not what it seems. The villa on the Via Margutta is hers. So is a small, water-damaged book her grandmother kept hidden for fifty years — Lizzie’s diary.
Emilia restores rare books for a living. As she lifts Lizzie's words from the damaged pages, she discovers a secret her family has buried for generations. The story of two priceless paintings that once hung in the villa. One genuine. One a flawless forgery.
A century apart, the two stories are bound together. And someone in Rome would rather Emilia never untangled them.
When she finally uncovers the truth, she must decide whether some secrets are meant to be preserved . . . or buried forever.
