The story of a family-run bar on a tiny island off the coast of Sicily, from 1914 to 2009.
This knockout adult debut by young British author Banner (she started writing teen novels at age 14) is guaranteed to draw comparisons to Beautiful Ruins, Cutting for Stone, and The House of the Spirits, whisking us away to a world grounded in both reality and myth, filled with marvelously peculiar characters, plotted on a grand scale. This one begins in the early 20th century with an Italian orphan, Amadeo Esposito, who overcomes his circumstances to study medicine, then answers a call for a physician on the (fictional) island of Castellamare. He arrives just in time for the annual feast for the island’s patron saint. The story of Sant’Agata, who saved the island from a plague of sorrows, is told to Amadeo by the beautiful schoolteacher Pina Vella; he adds it to the compendium of stories he collects in a red leather book given him by his foster father. At first, the villagers embrace Amadeo; he marries Pina and has a son. But thanks to past judgment errors of his own and the corrosive effects of the constant flow of gossip in the town, Amadeo is disgraced and removed from his post. To earn a living, he and Pina reopen the bar in the long-neglected House at The Edge of Night; there, three generations of Espositos will serve coffee, rice balls, and limoncellos to locals and visitors. World wars I and II, the Fascist period, and the financial crisis of 2009 all play critical roles in the plot, but so do the folk tales from Amadeo’s logbook, reprinted at the start of each section. So you get both this: “In the bar, there was some disagreement over how the trouble had started....Some of the customers maintained that it had begun with two rich Americans, Freddie and Fannie, others that it had started with two brothers named Lehman…” and this: “Two brothers were fishermen upon the sea, both very handsome and so alike that nobody could tell them apart, and both very poor.”
Ah, what fun. Don’t miss it.Pub Date: July 12, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-9879-5
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: March 30, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2016
Categories: GENERAL ROMANCE | HISTORICAL FICTION | ROMANCE | HISTORICAL ROMANCE
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Eleven years ago, he broke her heart. But he doesn’t know why she never forgave him.
Toggling between past and present, two love stories unfold simultaneously. In the first, Macy Sorensen meets and falls in love with the boy next door, Elliot Petropoulos, in the closet of her dad’s vacation home, where they hide out to discuss their favorite books. In the second, Macy is working as a doctor and engaged to a single father, and she hasn’t spoken to Elliot since their breakup. But a chance encounter forces her to confront the truth: what happened to make Macy stop speaking to Elliot? Ultimately, they’re separated not by time or physical remoteness but by emotional distance—Elliot and Macy always kept their relationship casual because they went to different schools. And as a teen, Macy has more to worry about than which girl Elliot is taking to the prom. After losing her mother at a young age, Macy is navigating her teenage years without a female role model, relying on the time-stamped notes her mother left in her father’s care for guidance. In the present day, Macy’s father is dead as well. She throws herself into her work and rarely comes up for air, not even to plan her upcoming wedding. Since Macy is still living with her fiance while grappling with her feelings for Elliot, the flashbacks offer steamy moments, tender revelations, and sweetly awkward confessions while Macy makes peace with her past and decides her future.
With frank language and patient plotting, this gangly teen crush grows into a confident adult love affair.Pub Date: April 10, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-2801-1
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Jan. 23, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2018
Categories: GENERAL ROMANCE | ROMANCE | FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP | CONTEMPORARY ROMANCE
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An unlucky woman finally gets lucky in love on an all-expenses-paid trip to Hawaii.
From getting her hand stuck in a claw machine at age 6 to losing her job, Olive Torres has never felt that luck was on her side. But her fortune changes when she scores a free vacation after her identical twin sister and new brother-in-law get food poisoning at their wedding buffet and are too sick to go on their honeymoon. The only catch is that she’ll have to share the honeymoon suite with her least favorite person—Ethan Thomas, the brother of the groom. To make matters worse, Olive’s new boss and Ethan’s ex-girlfriend show up in Hawaii, forcing them both to pretend to be newlyweds so they don’t blow their cover, as their all-inclusive vacation package is nontransferable and in her sister’s name. Plus, Ethan really wants to save face in front of his ex. The story is told almost exclusively from Olive’s point of view, filtering all communication through her cynical lens until Ethan can win her over (and finally have his say in the epilogue). To get to the happily-ever-after, Ethan doesn’t have to prove to Olive that he can be a better man, only that he was never the jerk she thought he was—for instance, when she thought he was judging her for eating cheese curds, maybe he was actually thinking of asking her out. Blending witty banter with healthy adult communication, the fake newlyweds have real chemistry as they talk it out over snorkeling trips, couples massages, and a few too many tropical drinks to get to the truth—that they’re crazy about each other.
Heartfelt and funny, this enemies-to-lovers romance shows that the best things in life are all-inclusive and nontransferable as well as free.Pub Date: May 14, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5011-2803-5
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: March 3, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2019
Categories: GENERAL ROMANCE | ROMANCE
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