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.