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?

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.

Summer Reads for my Garden

Now that summer's here, I thought that I would sort out some books to enjoy in the garden. It's easy to keep buying them and end up with a pile gathering dust and no time to read them, but we writers are always being advised to Read, Read, Read, so here are my choices:

• Silver Bay by Jojo Moyes. I love her novels, but I haven't read this one, published in 2007, and republished this year. It's set in New South Wales, and is also a story about Liza who protects whales, and the man who comes into her life and turns it upside down.
• The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker.  This book looks really exciting. Set in America, it's about Julia and her family who wake up one ordinary Saturday to find that the rotation of the earth has begun to slow, making the days get longer! I love sci-fi stories that are founded in reality, rather than fantasy ones, so this one sounds just right.
• The Beach Hut by Veronica Henry. Coming back down to earth and home to North Devon, this story follows the families who visit the seaside at Everdene each year, their love life and their memories of summers past. I think it may be a little like In the Summertime by Judy Astley, which I also hope to read, (if only I could read faster!)
• The Italian Wedding by Nicky Pellegrino. Off to Italy now. I'm going to read this book because I loved  her Recipe for Life which I reviewed last July. This one is about two feuding Italian families, and two love stories, (sounds a bit familiar!) but if it's anything like the last, I  know I'm going to love it.
• A Cornish Affair by Liz Fenwick. This is Liz's second novel, and like the first one, The Cornish House, I was able to buy it and get it signed by her at the RNA Conference. Originally from Boston, she now lives in Cornwall, and her love for the county shines through in her writing. This story is again about a Cornish house, and Jude, who leaves her fiancé at the altar, and ends up uncovering the secrets of the house's past. I can't wait!
• My last book, The Secret Keeper by Kate Morton, was actually on the bottom of my pile because it was the biggest, but I had began to read it on my Kindle on the train to the conference, and was lucky to get a hardback copy in my goody bag. Wow! It follows the story of Laurel who witnessed a terrible event one summer afternoon, fifty years ago, when she was sixteen, and the secret that her mother has kept throughout her life about why it happened. Will Laurel find the answer before it's too late?

These books are definitely going to keep me busy, and I will review them for you as I finish each one.

What have you got in your pile to read?