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.

She's Up to No Good

While I was waiting for one of my library books to become available, I picked up She's Up to No Good by Sara Goodman Confino, one of my two Amazon First Reads from July. (In case you're unfamiliar, if you're an Amazon Prime member, you get to pick one - or sometimes two - titles from a list of free books every single month. Most of them have been pretty good.)

For months after Jenna's marriage falls apart, she's living in her childhood bedroom at her parents' house in Maryland, only doing what's necessary to get through the days. Her elderly grandmother is planning a trip to her hometown in Massachusetts. Jenna volunteers to drive her grandmother up there. Maybe a change of scenery would do Jenna good.

This book reminded me of two of the books I'd recently read, The Summer Place by Jennifer Weiner and The Secret Love Letters of Olivia Moretti by Jennifer Probst. But what made She's Up to No Good stand out was Evelyn, Jenna's grandmother. She is a hoot. she manipulates words, has no filters. She'd probably drive me mad if she was my mother or grandmother. But reading about her, I loved her!

Evelyn had been a girl in a large Jewish family growing up in a Massachusetts fishing village. Many of the fisherman families are Portuguese. A Jewish girl falling in love with a Portuguese boy is a no go in the 1950s. That's the story that Evelyn shares with Jenna, bit by bit, as they make their drive and spend time together in the rented cabin where they are staying.

It's a typical romance story. Then again, it's not. It's a story about getting to know your family, about family secrets, and about second chances. I enjoyed it. It was a nice break after The Handmaid's Tale.

Better to Trust

It's always fun to win something, right? There was a giveaway for an Advanced Reader Copy of Heather Frimmer's new  novel, Better to Trust. Imagine my delight when I was notified that I won one of two copies of the book being given away. Since I've been doing most of my reading on the Kindle - and this was a paperback - I waited to start until we headed to the beach in September. I was engaged from page one. It took me longer to finish than it should have because once home, I really had to find time to finish a paperback book. This weekend was that time!

Once trust is broken, how easy is it to get it back? Better to Trust is a family drama. Alison has a bleed on the brain, needs surgery, decides to go with her brother-in-law, a famed neurosurgeon, even though a few people suggested that it was a terrible idea for Grant to operate on a family member. Meanwhile, Grant had his own secrets which made him truly not a good choice for the one to perform the surgery.

While Grant and his wife, Cynthia, Alison's sister, are preoccupied worrying about Alison, their daughter Sadie feels rejected. She's also really missing her Aunt Alison. Sadie makes a new friend who is not the best influence. Lots of trust issues erupt once Sadie and Piper start spending more time together.

Meanwhile, after surgery a rift develops between Alison and Cynthia who had previously been very close. What will it take to repair their relationship?

Finally, there's the issue of trust between Alison and her husband, Michael. Alison has got a secret, but does she blow things up while Michael has been so attentive to her during her rehabilitation after surgery?

I got sucked into the story from the first page. A well-developed story with interesting characters. My favorite character of the whole novel was Nate, the elementary school-aged son of the caregiver Alison had after she got home from the hospital. He reminded me of how much I miss having kids in my life.

I do have one complaint about the book related to the structure. The story had two converging timelines, starting in March, when Alison first got sick, and then another timeline several months later. The two timelines weren't distinct enough and sometimes it got confusing about what time period I was reading about, even though each chapter heading was dated. I think it might have been easier to read if the story had been told chronologically. Small complaint.

I'd recommend this one.
 

Vacation Read 3: The Things We Cannot Say

Last month, upon completion of The Warsaw Orphan by Kelly Rimmer, I realized that I'd never read her first Holocaust novel, The Things We Cannot Say. The two are somehow connected although for the life of me right now, I can't remember what the connection is. 

I can, however, tell you that I liked The Warsaw Orphan and I really liked The Things We Cannot Say.

The Things We Cannot Say has two main storylines. One is Alina's story set in Nazi-occupied Poland. The second story is set in the present. Alice is struggling in her married life, is overwhelmed parenting two exceptional children, and her grandmother Hannah is dying.

Hannah has just had another stroke and is most likely at the end of her life. She has lost the ability to speak. Alice's son, Edison, is a non-verbal boy on the austism spectrum who communicates with Alice via an app on his iPad. Alice realizes that she might be able to communicate with her grandmother using the same app. Once she does, Hannah has a request. She wants Alice to go to take a trip to Poland for her. She  wants photographs of her home, but the rest of her requests are lost in translation.

Usually when I'm reading a novel that has dual timelines and stories, I find one more engaging than the other. In this case, I was equally captivated by the raw emotions of both. I'm pretty sure I cried reading both narratives. This is a novel about relationships, about love, about commitment. I would highly recommend The Things We Cannot Say.

I do have one minor "complaint" though. Rimmer is an Australian author. Alice and her family live in Winter Park, Florida. Some of the words used in Alice's story were Australian and not American English. Like bench for kitchen counter and lounge for couch. It didn't detract from my enjoyment of the novel at all.
 

Last Summer at the Golden Hotel

 

What a fun read Elyssa Friedland's Last Summer at the Golden Hotel was! I enjoyed it so much more than I expected to. It was a nice change from the heavier books that I normally read. (Even though I feel like I've been taking more breaks now than I normally do.)

The Golden Hotel is one of the last remaining hotels of the famed Borscht Belt, the Catskill Mountains where mostly Jews from the NY area would head to each summer. Think Dirty Dancing. The story takes place in 2018, about 60 years after Amos Weingold and Benny Goldman built the Golden Hotel from the ground up. Benny has recently died, the Catskills are no longer drawing the crowd that it once did, and an offer to buy the hotel has been made by a casino developer. Should the families sell the hotel? Try to keep it?

Three generations of the families gather together at the hotel to make their decision. In the process, stories of days gone by are shared, family secrets are brought to the forefront, and family relationships are tested. I really enjoyed the differences between the generations - and between the various characters within a single generation.

As I was reading, I thought back upon my two trips to the Catskills. Once was in the early 1960s. My dad was chaperoning a college trip and he got to bring the family along. I remember that the college kids loved having my younger brother and me around. The hotel we stayed at closed in 1967 so that  hotel must have been reaching its tipping point. I went back with my (then) husband and some friends in the early 1980s. We stayed at the Concord, one of the hotels that managed to hold on the longest. I remember sitting in the dining room and basically ordering everything on the menu - simply because that's what you could do! I don't remember activities or entertainment, what the Borscht Belt hotels were most famous for. Well, that and the obscene quantity of food served nearly all day long!

If you're old enough to remember when summer vacations were something completely different from what they are today, you will probably enjoy this easy to read novel, too.

Florence Adler Swims Forever

As soon as I finished reading Florence Adler Swims Forever by Rachel Beanland, I gave it four stars on goodreads.com. It's been a few days  and now, as I'm deciding what to write about this debut novel, I'm wondering why I gave it 4 stars. It's a story about family secrets and I'm not sure I am crazy about the resolution of some of the conflicts. Then, after thinking a little bit more, I realized that I gave Florence Adler Swims Forever 4 stars because I really enjoyed reading it. It's not one of those novels where the characters or plot will stick with me forever. But I just plain took pleasure in the time I spent reading.

The book is set in Atlantic City in 1934. Life for the Jews in Europe is becoming more and more difficult. Atlantic City is an enclave for Jews who had immigrated in an earlier wave.

Florence Adler, the title character, actually has a fairly minor role in the book. She drowns in the ocean off the coast of Atlantic City while training to swim the English Channel in the first or second chapter. What happens after she dies is the basis of the novel.

Florence's sister, Fanny, is hospitalized, trying to save a pregnancy after losing a baby the summer before. Their mother, Esther, thinks it's important to keep the news of Florence's death from Fanny. Members of the family are harboring their own secrets as well. 

Beanland had an interesting way of storytelling. She wrote a chapter from each character's point of view in each section of the novel. That was a very effective way to fully develop the characters.

The author's notes and interview at the end of the book were very interesting as well. Beanland had a great-great-aunt, Florence, who drowned similar to her character Florence. She's taken a family story and adapted it. And it works!

The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem

 

We've been living in window replacement hell for the past two weeks. It probably would have been stressful in normal times, but that stress was compounded by doing a project such as window replacement during a pandemic. All the people in the house, touching surfaces, using the bathroom. Very stressful! That said, I have  been reading. I just haven't had the time to sit and blog.

Another book club book, this one for my Jewish book club, that I've read months in advance, just hoping that I can remember enough for a good discussion.

In Sarit Yishai-Levi's The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem, readers follow the stories of mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, parents and children, all told within the backdrop of the  30 years before and after the creation of the state of Israel.

There's was lots about the days before the creation of the state of Israel that I didn't know. Things about Ottoman rule especially. I did stop to research a little bit while reading, one of the big huge benefits of reading on an electronic device. I also learned quite a bit about Sephardic culture in Israel - and how wide the gulf was between the Sephardic Jews and the Ashkenazic Jews.

My biggest beef with the novel that covers 4 generations is that very few of the characters were at all likable. However, the sense of Israel was strong. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this novel, and I think it will make for a good book club discussion.

The Summer of '69

I've always enjoyed Elin Hilderbrand novels when I'm in the mood for something lighter to read. This one, Summer of '69, was no different. It was a nice, quick, easy summer read.

What was nice about this novel for me is that I was close in age to one of the main characters, Jessie, during the summer of 1969. At first I wrote THE main character, but I think that's because I was reading it from the perspective of a girl on the cusp of being a teen during that time. Unlike Jessie, I was the oldest in my family with just one younger sibling. That just meant that some of the things that Jessie's family experienced during that summer were things I observed in other families, but not my own.

This novel touches upon Vietnam, Woodstock, the walk on the moon, women's liberation, Ted Kennedy and Mary Jo Kopechne, anti-semitism and probably some other issues that I can't remember right now. It's important to note that these are issues that are merely touched upon. They are the backdrop of the story which I believe was Hilderbrand's intention. Reviews by readers older than I am have stated that lots in this novel isn't historically correct. that they remember things differently. I was too young to have strong recollections but the feeling of 1969 is definitely evoked. I'll state it again in different words. This is just a novel about a family going through some tough times during the summer of 1969.

While I did enjoy reading this, I was disappointed by the ending. It just sort of ended, leaving too much up in the air. But that didn't diminish the escape I got while reading this. Elin Hilderbrand, if you're reading this, a short epilogue would have sufficed.

Before We Were Yours

Have I told you lately that I love historical fiction?

I had a hard time getting into Lisa Wingate's latest historical fiction novel, Before We Were Yours. The beginning was not only confusing but it was pretty slow moving. But once I got things figured out and got into the groove, I couldn't wait to see what happens next.

Sometimes historical fiction teaches me about positive time periods, people and places. Other times, like in the case of Before We Were Yours, I get to learn about some really horrific episodes in history. Wingate tells the story of the Tennessee Children's Home Society orphanage and the scheme that Georgia Tann, director of the organization, had for what basically amounted to the kidnapping and selling of children. Blonde-haired children with blue eyes were most desired. Georgia Tann was well connected to wealthy families who for one reason or another couldn't have children of their own. Frequently, there was extortion that occurred after children were placed... or sold. The children were taken from hospitals, from the street while walking to school, or simply just when the parents weren't looking. Georgia Tann put on a good public front while running homes where the children were neglected, often abused and some children, far too many children, died.

Avery Stafford, the daughter of a wealthy senator in South Carolina has come home to help her father get through a medical crisis. She has a chance encounter with an older woman when her father was making an appearance at a nursing home. There's just something about the woman that gives Avery pause. When she gets a phone call later that the older woman was found with Avery's bracelet, Avery decides to pick up the bracelet directly from the woman. She discovers that there's some sort of connection between this older woman, May, and her grandmother, Judy.

Wingate alternates the story of the Foss children, told by oldest sibling  Rill with Avery's attempt to discover what the connection is between May and Judy. Avery enlists the help of Trent who also has some sort of connection thru his grandfather, Trent. The strength of the story is in the weaving of the tales. This is a family drama, a love story, a story about secrets and a story about the strength of sisterhood.

My community book club will be discussing Before We Were Yours in August. I hope that I remember enough about it for me to participate meaningfully. I look forward to discussing this one.

April 4: Going thru my iPad looking at pages I captured in order to write my review of The Librarian of Auschwitz and I found this one that I never referenced. This is probably not meaningful to you, but it's meaningful to me, to my brother and to my cousins.

Fern?
I'm sorry?
Fernie, it's me. Tears frame her eyes. Oh dear, I've missed you so. They told me you were gone. I knew you'd never break our promise.
For a second, I want to be Fern, just to make her happy - to give her a respite from standing by herself gazing into the wisteria. She seemed so very lonely out there. Lost.

 When we were younger, my brother and our first cousin went to visit our cousin's grandmother at a nursing home, there was a woman calling out for Rupert. My cousin had stuck his head in the door, thinking his grandmother might be in there. At that time, he so wished that he was Rupert. Years later, he and my brother, instead of addressing each other by name or by cuz, they use Rupert.