When Two Books Give You Lemons - Which One Should You Read?

These fabulous books came out this summer, written by two of my favourite authors:   Rosanna Ley and Jo Thomas. The covers look so similar - a table on an Italian terrace overlooking the blue sea, surrounded by lemons, and both are recommended by well known romantic novelists, but would these stories be as good as they look? Which one should you read?

Vernazza with boats 'parked' in the street!

I decided to read The Lemon Tree Hotel first and find out. This is a family story of three generations running The Lemon Tree Hotel in Vernazza, in the Cinque Terre, which I visited a few years ago.
It focuses on Chiara, who is fifty-nine and who inherited the hotel from her parents who opened it to save the buildings of an old convent which had been left in a state of disrepair; her daughter, Elene, who is in charge of the kitchen, and her daughter, Isabella, who has been to business school and helps her grandma with running the rest of the hotel.
There is also Aunt Giovanna who's in her eighties. She's not really an aunt, but was saved by Chiara's parents when the convent closed and now lives in a cottage in the grounds.
Life is going smoothly (although there is a widening rift between Chiara and Elene about how to run the hotel!) until the day that two new guests, Dante and Ferdinand, arrive separately and shake up everyone's lives.

Wikipedia 

Then, I settled down with My Lemon Grove Summer. At college, Zelda and Lennie made a pact that if they hadn't found anyone else by the time they were forty, they would marry each other. So here they are, part of a group of people promised a new start in Sicily with subsidised rents and a relocation fee, arriving in Città d'Ora to find the town is all run down because no tourists ever stop there on their way to Mount Etna. And their homes aren't ready to move into either!

Giuseppe, the mayor, who has invited them to Sicily, lets them stay in his family's farmhouse surrounded by lemon groves for the time being,  but the group is not made welcome in the town.

So on one side, there is Zelda and Lennie; Tabitha, a wannabe journalist; Barry, an ex-postman, Ralph, an ex-city banker and Sherise and Billy, ex-dairy farmers, and on the other: Romeo, who has the town under his control, and his brother, Matteo, the builder. 

Although, Giuseppe, their cousin, is trying to make things work, what the town needs is something to pull it together, and will Romeo's son, Luca, the gorgeous restauranteur, be the one to help the hapless Brits? 

And what about the wedding that tradition in the town says is needed to appease the rumbling Mount Etna? Are Zelda and Lennie ready for it?

These are wonderful stories of romance, sunshine and lemons in Italy. The cast of characters in both are perfect, and each book really explores life in its own region and, the loves and relationships of the people who live there.  

So if books give you lemons, I say read and enjoy both of them! Perhaps with a glass of limoncello?

The Temptation of Gracie by Santa Montefiore - Romance and Intrigue in 1950s Tuscany - Perfect for the Bank Holiday

The Temptation of Gracie by Santa Montefiore is a wonderful story of romance and intrigue, set in 1950s Tuscany.
When sixty-eight-year- old Gracie Burton suddenly decides to go on an Italian cookery course at a beautiful Tuscan castle, her friends and family are flabbergasted because she hardly ever used to leave her Devon village, even when Ted, her husband, was alive. However, her daughter, Carina, who has little time for her mother these days because she's busy running her PR firm, says she will go with her, if her daughter, Anastasia, will come along, as she's beginning to feel guilty that she spends so much time away from them both.

No one knows that Gracie has been to Italy before, but when she was thirteen, her mother's brother, Uncle Hans, offered to take her away to Tuscany to teach her how to restore valuable paintings. Grace's mother agreed, as she had little money, and so she went. There, Uncle Hans looked after her and bought her lovely clothes as she learnt the art of restoration. And there, Gracie fell in love with Count Tancredi.
But, why didn't she marry him? Why did she marry Ted instead? Why has she never told her family about her time in Tuscany? What draws her back there now?

Santa Montefiore paints a beautiful picture of Italy, from the Tuscan summer, to the snow-capped winter hills, where she sets her characters like Mama Bernadetta, whose traditional Tuscan recipes have a magical effect on the participants of her cookery course, including Grace, Carina and Anastasia.

I loved this book. It's the next best thing to going to Italy this Bank Holiday!

The Place We Met by Isabelle Broom - A Great Read for Cold, Dark January Days and Nights!

If you've read my blog before, you'll know that I like to read novels set in the places I've visited. Therefore, I loved The Place We Met, the latest book by Isabelle Broom, especially as it's set around Lake Como, Italy, where I spent a wonderful few days in September.

Taggie works at the Casa Alta Hotel near Como, it's nearly New Year's Eve and her big chance to make her name by putting on a big party and achieving her dream of becoming an events organiser; however, there a heartbreaking event in her own past that she's finding hard to forget.
Then, when she visits her secret beach by Lake Como, and slips into the icy water, strong, gorgeous Marco lifts her out, but is a new love interest what she really wants, or needs?

Lucy treats her boyfriend, Pete, to a New Year's break at Lake Como. She's not usually spontaneous, but surely a few days in such a romantic spot will help their relationship, especially after she finds a shoebox full of photos of a glamorous woman at the back of his wardrobe, and he receives some phone calls that he won't tell her about.

The story is told in turn from Taggie's and Lucy's point of view as the plot thickens and their lives intertwine.

For Isabelle Broom, the lake is an integral part of the novel, another character reflecting the emotional highs and lows of the girls as they come to terms with their past and move forward into the New Year.

I think that this New Year, it's a great read for all these cold, dark January days and nights.

(Look at my photo of Bellagio, it's almost the same as the cover of the book, but lots warmer!)

The Little Theatre by the Sea by Rosanna Ley - a Fabulous Summer Read!

My summer reading is well underway with the new book by Rosanna Ley, The Little Theatre by the Sea, set in beautiful West Dorset and Sardinia.

Faye, unattached and with a new degree in interior design, is invited to house-sit in Sardinia, by her friend, Charlotte, whilst she and her hotelier husband go to Italy for a month on a business trip. It sounds like a wonderful idea to spend a month in the sun, but what Charlotte doesn't tell her until she gets there is that the Alessandro Rinaldi and his sister, Marisa, are looking for someone to renovate the town's Little Theatre. She also doesn't let her know about the animosity in the town towards the Rinaldis and their plans, especially from Pasquale de Montis, an elderly actor, who does not want the theatre to change in any way, and Enrico Volti and his friends, who contest the Rinaldis' ownership of the theatre in the first place.

Cagliari, Sardinia

The story is all about secrets and relationships: secrets that the people of Deriu keep from Faye, and each other, and the secrets that her parents have kept from her, and each other too, as well as the complex relationships between all the characters. For example, the fledgling relationship between Faye and Alessandro, and the failing relationship between her parents, Ade and Molly; the deep love Pasquale felt for Sofia, Alessandro's and Marisa's mother, and the rejection he has never got over when she married Bruno Rinaldi; and the parental love between Enrico and his lost daughter, Giorgia, and the strained love between Pasquale and his even more elderly mother, Dorotea.

Cagliari, Sardinia

One of Rosanna's many writing skills is to make the setting an integral part of the story, contrasting the hot emotions of the people who live in sunny Sardinia, with the cooling of the relationship of Faye's parents back in England; and the decay and demise of the Little Theatre representing the breakdown in friendships, and the renewal of the theatre as a new beginning.

This is a fabulous summer read, whether you're headed to Sardinia or West Dorset for your holiday, or enjoying it in the back garden with a cup of tea !

One Night in Italy - A Sparkling Novel by Lucy Diamond

Italy is one of my favourite countries to visit. I love the beautiful terracotta roofed houses, the lemon and olive groves, the vineyards, the Renaissance cities of Florence and Venice, and the romantic city of Rome, and the food! And if I can't be there, I love to read about it.

Lucy Diamond  has written the perfect book, One Night in Italy, and although the book is set around an Italian evening class in Sheffield, the characters dream of going to this wonderful country, and some of them actually do!

The three main characters are:
Sophie who has been called home from Sorrento after spending some years in Italy because her father's had a heart attack and, as she's got nowhere and no one to return to, she becomes the teacher of the Italian class.

Catherine who comes to the class because she's trying to rebuild her life after her twins leave home for university and her husband has been waiting for this moment to tell her that he never loved her and wants a divorce.

Anna, a journalist, who discovers that her father is Italian and wants to go there and find him.
Add sisters, Nita and Phoebe, who want to meet some sexy Italian men;  and Roy and Geraldine who are planning a grand tour of Italy for their Ruby Wedding. They make a wonderful cast who support each other and grow together, fuelled by evenings in the local pub after the class is over.

In all this, Lucy Diamond had made great use of dialogue and dialect to draw loveable pictures of each of them for us to enjoy.
It's a sparkling book to read any time and you can even learn a few words of Italian as each chapter is headed up with the title in Italian as well as English!

The Villa Girls by Nicky Pellegrino - A Gentle Story, Full of Italian Sunshine and Warmth

The Villa Girls wasn't on my Summer Reading List this year, but it was on my bookshelf! I've had it some time because I loved Recipe for Life and The Italian Wedding which I have reviewed here and here, and it has links to both: The Villa Rosa in this one is the same as in Recipe for Life, and, Addolorata features in The Italian Wedding as she is the sister of Pieta, the girl who makes wedding dresses.
The other reason I read it is I love reading about Italy!
The story is told from from two points of view: Rosie, in the first person and Enzo, in the third with alternate chapters telling their stories, and I particularly liked Addolorata's comments and thoughts about Rosie at the end of each of her chapters too.

Not Triento, but enough pink villas for anyone!

The novel is set somewhere in the seventies or eighties; there are no mobile phones or any email, and life is lived at a slower pace. Rosie is coming to terms with her parents' death in England and, in Italy, Enzo Santi is growing up in privilege on his parents' olive farm. (I now know a lot about olive farming, having read this and The Olive Branch by Jo Thomas which I reviewed here!)
She becomes part of the Villa Girls when she goes on holiday with Addolorata, Lou and Toni to a villa in Majorca, and they like it so much that they rent the Villa Rosa in Triento and meet Enzo. But Rosie's fledgling holiday romance is shattered when Toni discovers what the Santi family have been hiding in their barn.
This is a gentle story, full of Italian sunshine and warmth, which follows Rosie and Enzo through the years. Will the promise of true love come true for them despite all the problems they have to surmount?

The Olive Branch by Jo Thomas - A Perfect Book to Warm up a Chilly Autumn Evening!

The Olive Branch by Jo Thomas was on the top of my pile of summer reads (see my blog post  here), but I waited until I was actually in Italy to read it!
The blurb said that 'olives and romance might just flourish in the warmth of the Mediterranean sun'. A perfect book to read on holiday!

Fuelled with Prosecco, in her empty flat that she once shared with her ex, Ed, Ruthie Collins buys an Italian farmhouse on eBay.
What a great start to a story!
If you enjoyed The Oyster Catcher, Jo Thomas' first novel, (review here) you will enjoy this especially because the cold wet west coast of Ireland has been swapped for sunny southern Italy.
But it doesn't start out like that because Ruthie arrives in torrential rain, only to find a grumpy goat blocking her front door. At least the weather gets better eventually and she meets her next door neighbours, the Bellanouvo family, but why aren't they pleased to meet her? And why is Marco Bellanouvo so angry that she's bought his grandfather's house? And how do you grow olives, anyway?
Jo Thomas has drawn her characters so well, including Ryan, the helpful Australian; Nonna, riding on the back of a Vespa; Luigi, Mrs Luigi and Young Luigi, that by the end I felt that they were old friends.
This book would make a wonderful heart-warming film. I read it on holiday in Italy, but it would be perfect to warm up a chilly autumn evening at home!

Don't wait two years to read The Italian Wedding by Nicky Pellegrino like I did!

I bought The Italian Wedding by Nicky Pellgrino two years ago, and can't understand why I didn't read it sooner!
It's got all my favourite things: weddings, cooking and Italy, of course!
The book starts straight off with Beppi Martinelli's recipe for aubergines in tomato sauce with mozzarella and parmesan: Melanzane alla Parmigiana. It's sounds delicious, and even better in Italian!
Beppi's daughter, Pieta, can't understand the long feud her father has with Gianfranco DeMatteo who owns a grocer's shop near their restaurant, Little Italy, in London.
She works for a wedding dress designer, and she is concerned to find that her latest customer is Helene who is to marry Gianfranco's son, Michele, the boy she has always wanted for herself. However, at home, she is making a wedding dress for her sister, Addolorata, and whilst she and her mother, Catherine, sew on the tiny shimmering beads, Catherine tells her the story of how she and Beppi met  in Rome, and the part Gianfranco played in the story.
It is a lovely picture of Italy all those years ago: all Vespas and full skirts, mixed with the relationships of the young people of today, and I can thoroughly recommend it for a satisfying read.