This book was just beautiful! It ebbed and flowed and was written from the heart! A love story like no other I’ve read, that had me praying for a happy ending.! Well done Caroline for bringing these characters to life!

I think I enjoyed this even more than The Glass Women, which I also gave 5 stars. Perhaps because this is much closer to home and more recent. I really felt the cold of the island and the isolation of the sisters. Their tragic past and their uneasy but fiercely loyal relationship was well portrayed. I hated the violence towards the prisoners and was glad to read that this didn't happen in real life - Italian prisoners really did build a chapel, but they were well treated. The chapel exists and can be visited - plenty of pictures on Google to see, it looks stunning.

This is set on the beautiful island of Orkney, and takes place during WWII. Dot and Con are twins, their parents tragically both drowned some years ago, Con, damaged by an incident that happened not long after they died, is so hurt that she retreats into herself and which no one knows the full truth about, not even her twin.

Part of this book features the building of a Catholic Church by Italian prisoners of war, a building which still stands on Lamb Holm today, visited annually by many tourists. This is a re-imagining of how it came to be built, with all the tensions there would have been when 1000 POWs are brought to islands where the locals don’t have enough food for themselves. The twins are so close that they seem to know what each other is thinking but are still able to hide secrets from each other. The descriptions of the islands are powerfully written, very atmospheric and this makes for an intense read. It was a little slow to start, but builds up the pace nicely. It’s difficult at times to think of the POWs as the enemy, as they are only men, most of whom just wanted to survive and go home. An unexpected ending, which was just what was needed to satisfy the reader. Enjoyable, though provoking read.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this book.

I loved this novel, set in the Scottish Orkney Isle, not that there is one other than the Scottish, in 1942 during the Second World War. Twins Dot and Con lost there l their parents a year ago when they tried to get to help for they're sick Mum,
The Story begins when a German U-boat attacked the port sinking a Ship on Kirkwall so Churchill decides to build a barrier to protect them from U-boat attacks, to do this a number of Italian prisoners of war are brought in to help. And so the story begins there are some more details to explain why the twins are or rather were the soul residents of the Isle till the prisoners camp was built there, but I will let you read that it will add to the experience.
As would be the case in any country there are nerves and rumours of the POW, however there is rumours and there are facts even in fiction.
Happily I can say this is more than a love story it's one of pain and triumph with some very good twists the ending is incredibly well written in my view and the book is wonderfully graphed all the way through. The characters are all real as in very credible the badie is unpleasant like any bully in life. I also love the clues that are spread through the story that are worth hanging on to. Some authors have inconsistencies i didn't find any that didn't make sense later in the novel, nonr of those what was that about just bits that opened my mind to questions that hung in there and made complete sense. What I'm saying is that this is incredibly well written and carried me along Caroline is an author that you fully trust to take you on the journey that is her book, novel or story. She made me feel safe with all the details something I have rarely found its like you are in this together which I guess you should be.
This has to be 5 starsits one of the best books of this type I've read, that's my way of putting it anyway.

This book drew me in so completely that I finished it in a day. I haven't been so engrossed by a novel since Pulitzer Prize winner All The Light We Cannot See. The descriptions of Orkney, of the sisters, of the fear amongst the islanders and the prisoners, of attacks from without and from within, of the hope, love and joy found in days of deepest darkness, were just stunning. It was minutely researched, intricately plotted and built with delicious depth of detail to a crescendo of a climax which blindsided me and had the hairs on the back of my neck standing on end. Quite simply, I loved it.

This is very loosely based on a true story of how Italian prisoners of war were allowed to build a chapel on an island in Orkney. The story involves twin women who have lost their parents and are staying in a shepherds hut on the island where the prisoners are working to build a sea defense or causeway between the small islands. One of the women has been abused by a man she trusted and is now very timid and frightened. The other one is stronger and forms an attachment to one of the prisoners. I felt it was over-written in an attempt to add drama. The women spent a lot of time stumbling about looking for each other and not achieving very much. The brutality of the guards was invented and so the switch from bread and water, beatings and hard labour to being free to build and decorate a chapel and having plenty of food seemed a little exaggerated. There is a small twist at the end which redeemed it a little.

A wartime love story set on a pair of Scottish islands, between a local woman and an Italian prisoner of war

The Metal Heart is an enjoyable love story set during the second world war. The Italian Chapel built by Italian prisoners of war is real, but everything else is fiction. Unfortunately I have been to the chapel and so much of the description of the area surrounding it so wrong that the book didn't gel for me. The island on which it stands is very flat and open whereas in the book it is hilly with cliffs. I'm sure I would have enjoyed it more if I hadn't already been there.