The Italian Wedding

 

The Italian Wedding by Nicky Pellegrino was part of the 3-novel volume that I needed to purchase in order to read The Food of Love Cookery School. I loved The Food of Love Cookery School (still trying to convince my husband we need to take a cooking class in Sicily - now that he watched a Hallmark movie about a cooking school in Venice, he's more intrigued by the idea of a cooking school). I simply liked The Italian Wedding. 

It was the perfect book to read on the plane on the first leg of my Italy trip. (And no, I'm not in Italy yet.) I was initially disappointed that so much of the novel took place in England, but gradually, there was more and more of the story set in Italy. At this point it's very obvious that I love reading books based in Italy, especially when they deal with food!

What was also cool is that in this novel, the main character, Pieta, is a wedding dress designer making her sister's wedding dress and helping her plan a dream wedding. The first leg of this trip I'm on is to attend my daughter's wedding. Lots of connections there!

Pieta's mother, Catherine, helps with the construction of the wedding dress. And as they sew and bead, Catherine tells Pieta about how she and Pieta's father met and fell in love. Until that point, Pieta had a very  hard time imagining her mother before she was her mother. 

This was a very enjoyable novel to read, had my mouth watering in parts, got me really excited to visit Italy (counting the days), and it would make a great Hallmark-type movie.

I look forward to reading The Villa Girls, the third novel in this volume.

The Scenic Route

The Scenic Route by Christina Baker Kline was an Amazon Prime First Reads selection. I've enjoyed Kline's historical fiction and the premise of this short story sounded good.

I'm not sure if I was disappointed because it was short and so a little less well fleshed out or because a book about "van life" was more about the aftermath of divorce than about being a nomad.

It was a quick, enjoyable read, but not particularly satisfying. But for a free quick read before bedtime when I was between books, I'm not complaining.

 

The Woman Beyond the Sea

The synagogue book club read The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem by Sarit Yishai-Levi three years ago. We all loved it. When we saw Yishai-Levi had written another novel, we wanted to read it. I'm going to miss our next book club meeting, but I try to read along anyway. I liked The Woman Beyond the Sea but I didn't love it. I think it's because the story started a little too slowly for me. Once I got to the second half of the novel, I thought it was a page turner. But it took awhile to get there.

Lily and her daughter, Eliya, have a difficult relationship. They've always had a difficult relationship. Shaul, Lily's husband and Eliya's father, keep the family together at an emotional cost to him, too. 

Jewish baby Lily was abandoned by the woman who gave birth to her when she was a few days old. At a convent. As Lily grew up, she took comfort in sitting with a picture of Mary and Jesus, but on some level, she felt like she never fit in there. That not fitting in and something missing from her life follows her through until Eliya is a young woman.

Eliya, likewise, feels like something is missing from her life. Like her mother, she feels that she's missed out on the love of a mother. It's evident in many of the choices she makes during her university days.

Both women need to come to moments of self-acceptance and perhaps forgiveness.

Lily's story is told third person while Eliya's story is told first person. But it's definitely both of their stories. The timing jumps around a little bit, going as far back Palestine during the early days under the British Mandate up through the time just following the Yom Kippur War in 1973. The history of Palestine and then Israel is essential to the plot. (Oh, how I'd love to get back to Tel Aviv and stroll along the beach.

I gave this novel 3 stars on goodreads.com, rounded down from 3.5 and it was only that low because of the slow start. However, I would still highly recommend this novel for book clubs. I think it will lead to a great discussion.