Stories compellingly unfold within this novel's tale of Miss Julia Garnet, a schoolteacher who determines, after the death of a long-time friend, to take an apartment for six months in Venice. The strange beauty of the city, its spectacular architecture and magnificent art, storms Miss Garnet's staunch English reserve. For the first time in her cautious life she falls in love - with Carlo, an art dealer - and her spirit, once awakened, is liberated further by her friendships with a beautiful Italian boy named Nico and an enigmatic pair of twins engaged in restoring the fourteenth-century Chapel-of-the-Plague. It is her discovery of a series of paintings in the nearby Church of the Angel Raphael, however, that leads finally to Julia's transformation.Intrigued by the paintings, Julia begins unravelling the story they tell of Tobias and the Archangel Raphael, an ancient tale of loss and redemption. At the same time, she herself sets out to recover losses - not only her own but also the priceless angel panel that goes missing from the Chapel, along with one of the twins restoring it. His name is Toby, and Miss Garnet may indeed prove to be an angel. But nothing is quite what it appears to be. Read Less