Matt O’Brien is an art restorer who has a fascination for 15^th century Italy (Quattrocento). While restoring a painting of a beautiful woman, he has the odd experience of being transported through time back to 15^th century Italy, into her life, where he promptly falls in love. Upon returning to his own time, he becomes almost obsessed with “Anna” and her life and is determined to find his way back.

I have a few problems with the novel, there seems to be an underlying story of a scientist named Klein who has discovered that time is really a vibration that occurs in a location, and the frequency of the vibration determines the “time” you are in.  This story is so underdeveloped as to be almost an afterthought, yet it is the core of Matt’s experiences.  I felt that if it is to be the “method of time travel” and it is to be such an important element of the novel, it should have been explained better and the story should have been filled out. The alternative would have been to downplay the method of travel and focus mostly on Matt’s experiences.  Because of this, I felt the novel was disjointed and not satisfying.

The description of daily life in Quattrocento was fascinating and always interests me and more so because this novel focused a lot on the life of ordinary people, albeit nobles, but not so much on famous characters.

Interestingly, this is the second novel I’ve read in this week that takes place in this time period and involves a woman who is a painter – something frowned on as only men were artists.