Happy Tuesday all!
This book was such a treat! The perfect book at just the right time! I cannot recommend it enough!🍷
My Thoughts
Family… Romance… regret… heart… hope… Lori Nelson Speilman swept me away to Italy and stole my heart with her vivid storytelling. For generations the second daughters of the Fontana family have been cursed, never to fall in love and get married. Emilia is resign to her fate, spending her days working in the family bakery and her nights at home with her cat. Lucy’s approach is a bit different, she spends all her energy trying to find a man and is constantly getting her heart stomped on. When the cousin’s Aunt Poppy reaches out to take the girls on an all expenses paid vacation to Italy they are intrigued. But their grandmother has not spoken to her sister Poppy in decades and forbids the girls to go to Italy. Unfortunately for grandma the allure of an Italian trip and the possibility of the curse being broken is too much. So Emilia and Lucy pack their bags and head to Italy. The food… the sites… the sounds… the smells… the family secrets… As The ladies travel around Italy Poppy begins to share the story of her romantic yet heartbreaking past.
I absolutely LOVED everything about this book! It is hands-down the best travel romance I have ever read. Sometimes when you read a book where travel is involved it can get really bogged down with descriptions of the food, and the sites, and all that. This book brought Italy alive, but the vivid descriptive writing did not detract anything from the gorgeous storyline. Emilia, Lucy, and poppy were such well developed characters with so much charm and heart as well as many insecurities and flaws. Most of the story takes place in current times, but we also got a generous sprinkling of flashbacks about Poppy’s lovestory. This is a story that will make you feel. I laughed, I cried, I got frustrated, I found joy. This is a can’t miss for anyone who loves the love.
This book in emojis 🐱 ✈️ 🍷 🎻 🇮🇹
*** Big thank you to Berkley for my gifted copy of this book. All opinions are my own. ***
About the Book
An international best seller!
A Library Reads pick and Indie Next Pick!
A trio of second-born daughters sets out on a whirlwind journey through the lush Italian countryside to break the family curse that says they’ll never find love, by New York Times best seller Lori Nelson Spielman, author of The Life List.
Since the day Filomena Fontana cast a curse upon her sister more than 200 years ago, not one second-born Fontana daughter has found lasting love. Some, like second-born Emilia, the happily single baker at her grandfather’s Brooklyn deli, claim it’s an odd coincidence. Others, like her sexy, desperate-for-love cousin Lucy, insist it’s a true hex. But both are bewildered when their great-aunt calls with an astounding proposition: If they accompany her to her homeland of Italy, Aunt Poppy vows she’ll meet the love of her life on the steps of the Ravello Cathedral on her 80th birthday and break the Fontana Second-Daughter Curse once and for all.
Against the backdrop of wandering Venetian canals, rolling Tuscan fields, and enchanting Amalfi Coast villages, romance blooms, destinies are found, and family secrets are unearthed – secrets that could threaten the family far more than a centuries-old curse.
Berit Talks Books 