A01=Natalie Lemle
Alps
archaeological dig
archaeologist
archaeology
art heist
art history
Author_Natalie Lemle
book club picks
book club reads
Category=FBC
Category=FFD
Category=FFS
Category=FH
collusion
Counterfeit
cultural heritage
digging sites
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forthcoming
historical
Italian
Italian alps
italy
Katy Hays
looted artifacts
mountains
museum
Roman villa
romance
Rome
secrets
suspense
The Cloisters
The Goldfinch
thriller
Product details
- ISBN 9781668068342
- Weight: 494g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 02 Jul 2026
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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For readers of The Cloisters and Counterfeit, Natalie Lemle’s debut novel offers an insider’s view into the world of stolen artifacts and the hidden networks that link museums to organized crime, when a woman is forced to remember the summer she spent on an archaeological dig in Italy, as everyone she knew then may now be in danger.
Successful trusts and estates attorney Lena Connolly is asked by a colleague to assist on a case: the Italian government claims an artifact was looted and sold to a museum illegally and is seeking repatriation. The object in question is a cup made of dichroic glass, which would have been rare even in Ancient Rome, let alone thousands of years later.
Lena has done everything she can to put the study abroad summer she spent on an archaeological dig in the Italian Alps behind her. Her dreams of being an archaeologist shattered when her mentor Cyrille disappeared and her enigmatic boyfriend Giamma went dark, but with this new case, the past comes roaring back.
Told in alternating timelines, Artifacts follows young Lena as she falls in love with both archaeology and Giamma on the streets of Torino while her adult self pieces together what truly happened on the dig, now a fully restored Roman villa with World Heritage status. The dichroic cup, Lena discovers, may have been taken from the very site she helped unearth.
Powerful and exuberant, Natalie Lemle’s Artifacts brings readers behind the museum glass and asks questions about cultural heritage and the historical preservation of our shared sense of humanity.
Successful trusts and estates attorney Lena Connolly is asked by a colleague to assist on a case: the Italian government claims an artifact was looted and sold to a museum illegally and is seeking repatriation. The object in question is a cup made of dichroic glass, which would have been rare even in Ancient Rome, let alone thousands of years later.
Lena has done everything she can to put the study abroad summer she spent on an archaeological dig in the Italian Alps behind her. Her dreams of being an archaeologist shattered when her mentor Cyrille disappeared and her enigmatic boyfriend Giamma went dark, but with this new case, the past comes roaring back.
Told in alternating timelines, Artifacts follows young Lena as she falls in love with both archaeology and Giamma on the streets of Torino while her adult self pieces together what truly happened on the dig, now a fully restored Roman villa with World Heritage status. The dichroic cup, Lena discovers, may have been taken from the very site she helped unearth.
Powerful and exuberant, Natalie Lemle’s Artifacts brings readers behind the museum glass and asks questions about cultural heritage and the historical preservation of our shared sense of humanity.
Natalie Lemle studied classics and art history at Tufts University and earned an MFA in creative writing from Emerson College. She is the founder of art_works, an art advisory connecting contemporary artists with global companies, and previously worked in corporate relations at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. She serves on the boards of the ICA/Boston and the Associates of the Boston Public Library. She lives outside of Boston with her husband and two kids. Artifacts is her first novel.
