The Devoted

From wartime Italy to the American West, Jonathan Hull takes readers on a heartrending passage through the lives of three families torn by history and bound by an unshakeable — and at times forbidden — devotion. Ryan Brooks never forgot the powerful hands that pulled him from the wreckage of his parents’ station wagon that summer in 1960 when he was ten and his childhood came to a fiery end during a family vacation. Thirty years later, Ryan returns to Wyoming to thank the dying rancher for saving the life he is still trying to be worthy of. The chilling sight of Mike O’Donnell’s deeply scarred hands is just the beginning of Ryan’s journey as he soon finds himself caught between the rancher’s captivating — and married — daughter, Shannon, and his mysterious Italian wife, Alessandra. When Mike’s deathbed confession sets Ryan on a search for the truth of what really happened the day his parents died, he unearths a long-buried secret that leads to a mountain cave in Northern Italy and Alessandra’s dangerous love affair with a haunted young German soldier. As past and present collide in an intricately woven story of love and redemption across generations and continents, Ryan discovers that the answers he seeks are inscribed deep in the hearts of those whose lives — and courage — he must measure against his own.

Jonathan Hull spent ten years as an award-winning correspondent at Time magazine, including three as Jerusalem bureau chief. The best-selling author of Losing Julia and The Distance from Normandy, he lives in Sausalito, California.