An engaging and readable work of women’s fiction set in contemporary Florence.
An American woman searches for her mother—and herself—in Florence in this novel.
Author Lyn Bennet is off to spend a month in Florence as part of an annual writers’ seminar, though her journey is dampened by the last-minute news that her husband, Stan, won’t be joining her due to a “big deal at the office.” As a result, she’s forced to celebrate her 35th birthday alone. Her trip this year has extra significance because she’s working on a book about her recently deceased mother, Jennifer, who came to Florence as one of the Mud Angels in 1966 to help salvage the city’s works of art following the destructive flooding of the Arno. Armed with her mother’s journal, Lyn wishes to find someone who would have worked with her back then in order to fill in the gaps in the story. She meets Matteo by chance when the Florentine happens to find and return Lyn’s scarf. He works as one of the acquisition directors at the Uffizi, and Lyn is instantly enamored of him. Matteo is working to cement his father’s legacy by securing a specific—though mysterious—piece for the museum. Soon, Stan arrives in Florence, but not with good news. He and his wife’s best friend, Susie, have both come to tell the author about the affair they’ve been having—a devastating revelation that ruins Lyn’s two closest relationships. “Love is selfish,” Stan tells her glibly. “You know that. You fall in love. It’s about seizing it. It’s just—you know you gotta seize it. No one wants to hurt anyone.” With her life crumbling around her, Lyn has no choice but to dig deeper into her project; the writings of her colorful group of students; and the beauty of Florence itself, which her mother worked so hard to preserve. Selbo’s (Dreams of Discovery, 2018, etc.) prose is breezy, and she takes great pleasure in describing the picturesque features of the book’s eponymous city: “Soon the street opens into the Piazza di San Lorenzo and there’s the basilica, standing grand and venerable. Technically it’s incomplete—because Michelangelo’s design for a Carrara marble façade was never realized. I always marvel at how gorgeous I find it; its unfinished rawness.” Her characters are well-drawn—particularly the goofs that Lyn instructs as part of the writing seminar—though they do slip occasionally into clichés. Matteo has a bit of the flatness of a fantasy partner, saying things like “We Italians cherish the past. It is still alive with us. Americans are always busy with the present.” The author does an admirable job weaving in the artistic history of Florence, especially the tragic flood that almost erased so much of it. Novels like this one peddle a bit in escapism. But Lyn and Jennifer help to convince readers that Florence isn’t simply a beautiful place to run away to, but also a fragile place that must be cherished—akin, perhaps, to the human heart.
An engaging and readable work of women’s fiction set in contemporary Florence.Pub Date: Oct. 26, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-950627-23-3
Page Count: 260
Publisher: Pandamoon Publishing
Review Posted Online: Dec. 10, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s...
The traumatic homecoming of a wounded warrior.
The daughter of alcoholics who left her orphaned at 17, Jolene “Jo” Zarkades found her first stable family in the military: She’s served over two decades, first in the army, later with the National Guard. A helicopter pilot stationed near Seattle, Jo copes as competently at home, raising two daughters, Betsy and Lulu, while trying to dismiss her husband Michael’s increasing emotional distance. Jo’s mettle is sorely tested when Michael informs her flatly that he no longer loves her. Four-year-old Lulu clamors for attention while preteen Betsy, mean-girl-in-training, dismisses as dweeby her former best friend, Seth, son of Jo’s confidante and fellow pilot, Tami. Amid these challenges comes the ultimate one: Jo and Tami are deployed to Iraq. Michael, with the help of his mother, has to take over the household duties, and he rapidly learns that parenting is much harder than his wife made it look. As Michael prepares to defend a PTSD-afflicted veteran charged with Murder I for killing his wife during a dissociative blackout, he begins to understand what Jolene is facing and to revisit his true feelings for her. When her helicopter is shot down under insurgent fire, Jo rescues Tami from the wreck, but a young crewman is killed. Tami remains in a coma and Jo, whose leg has been amputated, returns home to a difficult rehabilitation on several fronts. Her nightmares in which she relives the crash and other horrors she witnessed, and her pain, have turned Jo into a person her daughters now fear (which in the case of bratty Betsy may not be such a bad thing). Jo can't forgive Michael for his rash words. Worse, she is beginning to remind Michael more and more of his homicide client. Characterization can be cursory: Michael’s earlier callousness, left largely unexplained, undercuts the pathos of his later change of heart.
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s aftermath.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-57720-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
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