A sweeping finale to a panoramic portrait.
Auci concludes her expansive saga of the Florios, a famous real-life family of Sicilian industrialists.
Previous volumes (The Florios of Sicily, 2020; The Triumph of the Lions, 2024) traced the family’s fortunes from 1799 to 1893. This final installment in the saga finds the uber-successful family facing far less salubrious circumstances during the years 1894 to 1935 and concludes with an elegiac epilogue set in 1950. As mounting debt and regional rivalries erode the value of the dynasty’s assets, Ignazio, feckless heir to the manufacturing, mining, fishing, and winemaking empire, faces business and political challenges beyond his ability to maneuver. Though he attempts to maintain some degree of control of the business, the Florios’ sumptuous lifestyle is threatened. At home, Ignazio’s often-neglected wife, Franca, suffers as a result of his womanizing and the pressure to produce a male heir in order to carry the dynasty forward. (Changes in attitudes about women’s roles may factor in here, too.) Replete with detailed descriptions of the family’s various homes, travels, and social engagements—and of Franca’s fabulous wardrobe and jewelry—the account plunges the once-fortunate clan into the devastation wrought by World War I. Cameo appearances by contemporary figures including Giacomo Puccini and various European royals keep the glitz factor high as Auci deftly conveys the family’s fall from grace. Gregor and Curtis have translated the novel from Italian while retaining some phrases in the original for effect. This is the final book in a trilogy that serves as the basis for the Hulu miniseries The Lions of Sicily, and it includes a summary of the historical events underlying the plot as well as a family tree helpful for identifying the Florios, many of whom share the same given names.
A sweeping finale to a panoramic portrait.Pub Date: Aug. 27, 2024
ISBN: 9780063389151
Page Count: 416
Publisher: HarperVia
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Have tissues ready as you read this. A small package will do.
A love story about a life of second chances.
In Nassau, in the Bahamas, casino detective Vincent LaPorta grills Alfie Logan, who’d come up a winner three times in a row at the roulette table and walked away with $2 million. “How did you do it?” asks the detective. Alfie calmly denies cheating. You wired all the money to a Gianna Rule, LaPorta says. Why? To explain, Alfie produces a composition book with the words “For the Boss, to Be Read Upon My Death” written on the cover. Read this for answers, Alfie suggests, calling it a love story. His mother had passed along to him a strange trait: He can say “Twice!” and go back to a specific time and place to have a do-over. But it only works once for any particular moment, and then he must live with the new consequences. He can only do this for himself and can’t prevent anyone from dying. Alfie regularly uses his power—failing to impress a girl the first time, he finds out more about her, goes back in time, and presto! She likes him. The premise is of course not credible—LaPorta doesn’t buy it either—but it’s intriguing. Most people would probably love to go back and unsay something. The story’s focus is on Alfie’s love for Gianna and whether it’s requited, unrequited, or both. In any case, he’s obsessed with her. He’s a good man, though, an intelligent person with ordinary human failings and a solid moral compass. Albom writes in a warm, easy style that transports the reader to a world of second chances and what-ifs, where spirituality lies close to the surface but never intrudes on the story. Though a cynic will call it sappy, anyone who is sick to their core from the daily news will enjoy this escape from reality.
Have tissues ready as you read this. A small package will do.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9780062406682
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 18, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
A heartbreaking, laugh-provoking, and absolutely Ephron-esque look at the beauty and fragility of everyday life.
A woman faces a health crisis and obsesses over a local accident in this wonderful follow-up to Sandwich (2024).
Newman begins her latest with a quote from Nora Ephron: “Death is a sniper. It strikes people you love, people you like, people you know—it’s everywhere. You could be next. But then you turn out not to be. But then again, you could be.” It sets an appropriate tone for a story that is just as full of death and dread as it is laughter. Two years after the events of Sandwich, Rocky is back home in Western Massachusetts and happily surrounded by family—her daughter, Willa, lives with her and her husband, Nick, while applying to Ph.D. programs; her widowed father, Mort, has moved into the in-law apartment behind their house. When a young man who graduated from high school with Rocky’s son, Jamie, is hit by a train, Rocky finds herself spiraling as she thinks about how close the tragedy came to her own family. She’s also freaking out about a mysterious rash her dermatologist can’t explain. Both instances are tailor-made for internet research and stalking. As Rocky obsessively googles her symptoms and finds only bad news (“Here’s what’s true about the Internet: very infrequently do people log on with their good news. Gosh, they don’t write, I had this weird rash on my forearm? And it turned out to be completely nothing!”), she also compulsively checks the Facebook page of the accident victim’s mother. Newman excels at showing how sorrow and joy coexist in everyday life. She masterfully balances a modern exploration of grief with truly laugh-out-loud lines (one passage about the absurdity of collecting a stool sample and delivering it to the doctor stands out). As Rocky deals with the byzantine frustrations of the medical system, she also has to learn, once more, how to see her children, husband, father, and herself as fully flawed and lovable humans.
A heartbreaking, laugh-provoking, and absolutely Ephron-esque look at the beauty and fragility of everyday life.Pub Date: Oct. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9780063453913
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
PERSPECTIVES
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