The Stolen Child, Ann Hood
The Stolen Child, Ann Hood
List: $24.99 | Sale: $17.50
Club: $12.49

The Stolen Child
A Novel

Author: Ann Hood

Narrator: Jefferson Mays

Unabridged: 10 hr 49 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Recorded Books

Published: 05/07/2024


Synopsis

An unlikely duo ventures through France and Italy to solve the mystery of a child’s fate in this moving, page-turning novel from “a gifted storyteller” (PEOPLE).

For decades, Nick Burns has been haunted by a decision he made as a young soldier in World War I, when a French artist he’d befriended thrust both her paintings and her baby into his hands—and disappeared. In 1974, with only months left to live, Nick enlists Jenny, a college dropout desperate for adventure, to help him unravel the mystery. The journey leads them through Parisian galleries and provincial towns to a surprising place: the Museum of Tears, the life’s work of a lonely Italian craftsman. Determined to find the baby and the artist, hopeless romantic Jenny and curmudgeonly Nick must reckon with regret, betrayal, and the lives they’ve left behind.

With characteristic warmth and verve, Ann Hood captures a world of possibility and romance through the eyes of a young woman learning to claim her place in it. The Stolen Child is an engaging, timeless novel of secrets, love lost and found, and the nature of forgiveness.

“This is a lovely story about two artists meeting in the midst of World War I, a missing baby, and an intelligent, lost young woman helping an old man fix the mistakes of his past. I loved Nick and Jenny from the moment I met them, and had all my fingers crossed that they would find not only what they were looking for, but themselves.”—Ann Napolitano, author of Hello Beautiful

About Ann Hood

Ann Hood is the editor of Knitting Yarns: Writers on Knitting and the bestselling author of The Book That Matters Most, The Knitting Circle, The Red Thread, Comfort, An Italian Wife, among other works. She is the recipient of two Pushcart Prizes, a Best American Spiritual Writing Award, a Best American Food Writing Award, a Best American Travel Writing Award, and the Paul Bowles Prize for Short Fiction. She lives in Providence, Rhode Island.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Karen on July 12, 2024

Although there are 3 stories told over several time periods, it seems to be mostly Jenny’s story. The beginning starts with Nick Burns in a trench in WWI France who has a woman literally hand him her newborn son. And then we find ourselves as readers jumping to 1970’s where Nick is seeking a final r......more

Goodreads review by Mary on August 28, 2024

I guess I've been living under a rock because I had never heard of Ann Hood prior to seeing The Stolen Child in my library's catalog. I am going to be checking out her backlist now as this is one of the most moving works of fiction I have ever read. There are multiple timelines and multiple viewpoin......more

Goodreads review by Diana on July 13, 2024

A grumpy WWI vet and a college dropout travel to France to track down the fate of a baby the vet was entrusted with as a young soldier nearly 60 years earlier. This was such a beautiful and bittersweet historical mystery with characters I fell in love with, warts and all. Multiple storylines weave t......more

Goodreads review by Moonkiszt on July 12, 2024

A grouch grumbling, a waitress waiting, a lost child - that's how you begin, dear Reader. By the end it is all turned upside down and inside out, a read that kept me tight to the page, even though I had pretty much figured out how it would go . . . .yet it was a story swell-built, keeping me on the r......more

Goodreads review by Kelly on January 17, 2024

Hood's book has history, beautiful landscapes, and well-developed characters. The story is complex but reads easily and smooth. I rarely love historical fiction, but this worked for me. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.......more