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
Hilderbrand’s portrait of the upper-crust Tate clan through the years is so deliciously addictive that it will be the “It”...
Queen of the summer novel—how could she not be, with all her stories set on an island—Hilderbrand delivers a beguiling ninth (The Castaways, 2009, etc.), featuring romance and mystery on isolated Tuckernuck Island.
The Tate family has had a house on Tuckernuck (just off the coast of swanky Nantucket) for generations. It has been empty for years, but now Birdie wants to spend a quiet mother-daughter week there with Chess before Chess’s wedding to Michael Morgan. Then the unthinkable happens—perfect Chess (beautiful, rich, well-bred food editor of Glamorous Home) dumps the equally perfect Michael. She quits her job, leaves her New York apartment for Birdie’s home in New Canaan, and all without explanation. Then the unraveling continues: Michael dies in a rock-climbing accident, leaving Chess not quite a widow, but devastated, guilty, unreachable in the shell of herself. Birdie invites her younger daughter Tate (a pretty, naïve computer genius) and her own bohemian sister India, whose husband, world-renowned sculptor Bill Bishop, killed himself years ago, to Tuckernuck for the month of July, in the hopes that the three of them can break through to Chess. Hunky Barrett Lee is their caretaker, coming from Nantucket twice a day to bring groceries and take away laundry (idyllic Tuckernuck is remote—no phone, no hot water, no ferry) as he’s also inspiring renewed lust in Tate, who has had a crush on him since she was a kid. The author jumps between the four women—Tate and her blossoming relationship with Barrett, India and her relationship with Lula Simpson, a painter at the Academy where India is a curator, Birdie, who is surprised by the recent kindnesses of ex-husband Grant, and finally Chess, who in her journal is uncoiling the sordid, sad circumstances of her break with normal life and Michael’s death.
Hilderbrand’s portrait of the upper-crust Tate clan through the years is so deliciously addictive that it will be the “It” beach book of the summer.Pub Date: July 6, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-316-04387-8
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Reagan Arthur/Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: June 3, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2010
Though all the surface elements are in place, Picoult falters in her exploration of what turns a quiet kid into a murderer.
Picoult’s 14th novel (after The Tenth Circle, 2006, etc.) of a school shooting begins with high-voltage excitement, then slows by the middle, never regaining its initial pace or appeal.
Peter Houghton, 17, has been the victim of bullying since his first day of kindergarten, made all the more difficult by two factors: In small-town Sterling, N.H., Peter is in high school with the kids who’ve tormented him all his life; and his all-American older brother eggs the bullies on. Peter retreats into a world of video games and computer programming, but he’s never able to attain the safety of invisibility. And then one day he walks into Sterling High with a knapsack full of guns, kills ten students and wounds many others. Peter is caught and thrown in jail, but with over a thousand witnesses and video tape of the day, it will be hard work for the defense to clear him. His attorney, Jordan McAfee, hits on the only approach that might save the unlikable kid—a variation of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder caused by bullying. Thrown into the story is Judge Alex Cormier, and her daughter Josie, who used to be best friends with Peter until the popular crowd forced the limits of her loyalty. Also found dead was her boyfriend Matt, but Josie claims she can’t remember anything from that day. Picoult mixes McAfee’s attempt to build a defense with the mending relationship of Alex and Josie, but what proves a more intriguing premise is the response of Peter’s parents to the tragedy. How do you keep loving your son when he becomes a mass murderer? Unfortunately, this question, and others, remain, as the novel relies on repetition (the countless flashbacks of Peter’s victimization) rather than fresh insight. Peter fits the profile, but is never fully fleshed out beyond stereotype. Usually so adept at shaping the big stories with nuance, Picoult here takes a tragically familiar event, pads it with plot, but leaves out the subtleties of character.
Though all the surface elements are in place, Picoult falters in her exploration of what turns a quiet kid into a murderer.Pub Date: March 6, 2007
ISBN: 0-7434-9672-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2007
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