A dual-narrative mystery for literature and art lovers: The Secret Diary of Rome

M. A. McLaughlin writes atmospheric mysteries about figures from 19th-century history and women at a crossroads who courageously pave their own path. Sometimes these characters are one and the same.

The Secret Diary of Rome interweaves two narratives. During her engagement party on New Year’s Eve in New York City in 1959, Emilia Rinaldi gets a surprising phone call. Her Italian grandmother, Teresa, who she never met due to a family estrangement, recently passed away and left her a significant inheritance, including her villa in Rome, and Emilia needs to travel there within days to claim it in person.

Emilia’s wealthy English fiancé, Oliver, feels affronted at the idea of her abandoning their wedding plans (which involve pushy future in-laws) for an overseas trip. His lack of support made me doubt a positive romantic outcome for the couple. Maybe Emilia’s happily-ever-after would be with Italy instead? If so, I was certainly up for that journey.

Pub. by Choc Lit/Joffe Books (UK), Sept. 2026

A bookbinder by profession, Emilia grows curious after discovering a torn-off page from Elizabeth Siddal’s diary in her late mother’s music box. As many will know, Elizabeth, nicknamed Lizzie, was the beautiful model, muse, and later wife to Dante Gabriel Rossetti, a founder of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.

Emilia wonders whether the rest of Lizzie’s diary exists (it does) and what it contains (her book-restoration expertise comes in handy, since the little book is heavily damaged). In entries written to her unborn child, Lizzie Siddal writes about her working-class beginnings in 1850s England, the unusual turn of events that see her becoming a painter’s model, the stresses she endures in her relationship with Rossetti, and her desire to be taken seriously as an artist in her own right. Her struggles reflect the mid-Victorian age, and so do her reactions: she takes laudanum to relax.

The Rome that Emilia encounters isn’t the glamorous touristy version but one of small close-knit neighborhoods, streets adorned with lights and banners for the Befana celebration at Epiphany, a community church dedicated to a martyred saint, and an underground book collection kept in safekeeping since the Nazi occupation. Here in 1960, the ancient city, with its layers of architecture dating back millennia, bears visible scars of its WWII past.

The housekeeper at the villa on the Via Margutta, Anna, and her son Carlo, Grandmama Teresa’s lawyer, act as Emilia’s guides and protectors; Emilia has some odd encounters and worries that her grandmother had had a stalker. She also learns more about mysteries involving other family members.

Between the story’s macabre beginnings, with the exhumation of Lizzie’s grave to retrieve a poetry book buried with her—this actually happened—and the dangers posed by Emilia’s pursuit of the truth (admittedly, she’s a bit slow to realize this), the plot takes some chilling turns. McLaughlin side-steps a few tropes common to dual-narrative mysteries while bringing us into the company of many intriguing secondary characters, both real and fictional.

The Secret Diary of Rome was published on September 1st by Choc Lit/Joffe in the UK (£7.99, paperback, 272pp).