Prim, English spinster travels to Venice where she loses her preconceptions and finds her angel. I liked it a lot and find it hard to top this review http://us.penguingroup.com/static/rguides/us/miss_garnets_angel.html ( )

If you like Venice; if like me you read The Apocrypha at school as a work of literature; and if you like the books of Salley Vickers you'll find this a good read. It's a genuinely clever attempt to tie the story of Tobias and the Angel to the life of slightly starchy spinster Julia Garnet now on a prolonged stay in Venice and the people whom she meets and interacts with there. It's a good story. It's a clever story. But I never quite believed in the characters. Almost, but not quite. Read it when you're in Venice. Then it won't matter at all. ( )

[This is a review I wrote in 2008]

**Art, Venice and mid-life self-discovery - a refreshingly different novel.**

`Death is outside life but it alters it: it leaves a hole in the fabric of things which those who are left behind try to repair.' Thus opens the novel.

Julia Garnet and her long-standing companion and flatmate Harriet decide to retire from work together, on the same day, but when two days later Harriet unexpectedly dies, Miss Garnet decides it is time to take a trip abroad and settles upon six months in Venice. Cautious, dignified and unadventurous by nature, Julia is also a virgin and inexperienced in matters of the heart. Venice is quite a revelation.

Julia discovers feelings of passion for the first time when she comes across the Guardi panels in the Chiesa dell'Angelo Raffaele (Church of Angelo Raffaele), which depict the Apocryphal story of Tobias and the Angel. As she views the paintings ...'Something rusty and hard shifted deep inside Julia Garnet', and she goes on to make further emotional discoveries through her friendships and discoveries in the city of Venice. Julia discovers that for the first time in her life she is able to befriend others, and counts among her friends a couple she accused of queue jumping the taxi rank on her first day, a young boy, Nicco, the unsuitable and overly-attentive Carlo, a couple of young English church restorers, and a charming priest.

The ancient Jewish story of Tobias and the Angel is deftly interwoven amongst Julia's story of re-awakening and discovery. Tobias undertakes his journey of ancient times as Julia travels in the present day, and there are subtle threads between them.

Quite a surprise and not at all what I was expecting, `Miss Garnet's Angel' is a breath of fresh air to read. The unsophisticated anti-heroine, Julia, is so down-to-earth, so dignified, and for her years so naive, that she is quite plausible, believable and ultimately delightful, as she discovers each new experience and her confidence grows. A thoroughly enjoyable novel of travel and discovery and one I have no hesitation in recommending to anyone. ( )

Early Reviewer Book. Julia Garnet is a great character. Retired spinster school teacher decides to live in Venice for six months after her roommate passes away. Loved reading about Venice as it becomes a character in the book. This city has a number of oddball characters that make the book interesting. ( )

Purchased on a whim at Richard Booth's Bookshop in Hay-on-Wye, and very glad I did!

After the death of her friend and flatmate Harriet, Julia Garnet, a middle-aged atheist Communist virgin, decides to take an extended trip to Venice. The beauty of the city awakens long-dormant passions in Miss Garnet, both physical and spiritual: she falls in love, has her heart broken, forms friendships, and even has her vision opened to the presence of the angel Raphael. Her confidence soars to inflated heights and then is brought crashingly low by an unkind word or unexpected turn of events before she learns to handle relationships gracefully (well, sort of gracefully, at least!) Those of us who have been painfully introverted and gradually come out of our shells a bit will be able to identify.

The story of Miss Garnet and her friends is interspersed with, and runs rather parallel to, a narrative of the Biblical story of Tobit. The addition of the Tobit story is inspired not only by parallels with the events in Miss Garnet's narrative, but by a series of paintings in Venice's Chiesa dell'Angelo Raffaele which themselves depict the story of Tobit. The whole book is rich with description of Venice and its artistic treasures (and makes me want to drop everything and go running off to the city itself immediately!) The book of Tobit is part of the apocrypha, which (as Miss Garnet learns) comes from the Greek word meaning 'hidden,' and there's a theme of secrets revealed and a dash of esoteric lore running throughout this book - tantalising stuff.

Rather like [The Enchanted April], this is a story of a woman who travels to Italy and unexpectedly finds herself amid the history and beauty of her surroundings. ( )