I quite enjoyed this book.

The coming of age stories and love triangle are painful — and painfully long. She could have cut that down by 50%.

BUT learning about Italy under Mussolini during the rise to power of Hitler is fascinating.

Mussolini was a strongman fascist dictator by 1922.

I hadn’t realized that Mussolini initially viewed Hitler with a mixture of condescension, ideological skepticism, and strategic distrust. Many Italians thought that Italy would join England as an ally in WW II.

Eternal by Lisa Scottoline is a sweeping historical fiction novel set in Rome during the rise of Italian Fascism and World War II.

The author had long wanted to write about this era, inspired when she was a university student taught by author Philip Roth.

The narrative heavily explores the enduring power of friendship, family, loss, resilience, and the historical reality of ordinary citizens caught in political terror.

Recommended.

Mussolini was caught trying to flee Italy. Killed by machine gun April 28, 1945. His body transported to Milan. In the public square of Piazzale Loreto an angry crowd kicked and spat on him. Finally, his body and longtime mistress, Clara Petacci were hung upside down by their heels from the girders of a half-built Esso gas station.

That was the end of fascism in Italy.