When Sofia Bianchi’s father Aldo dies, it makes her stop and look at things afresh. Having been his carer for so many years, she knows it’s time for her to live her own life – and to fulfil some promises she made to Aldo in his final days.
So there’s nothing for it but to escape to Italy’s Umbrian mountains where, tucked away in a sleepy Italian village, lie plenty of family secrets waiting to be discovered. There, Sofia also finds Amy who is desperately trying to find her way in life after discovering her dad isn’t her biological father.
Sofia sets about helping Amy through this difficult time, but it’s the handsome Levi who proves to be the biggest distraction for Sofia, as her new life starts to take off…
One Summer in Italy is no exception to this rule. Transported, through Sue's excellent writing, to the mountains of Italy I was able to imagine a land to which I never visited but would love to see. The reader is able to follow Sofia and Amy as they travel to try and find Amy's relatives and to uncover the family secrets that have been hidden away for a number of years.
I have really enjoyed this book and as with all of Sue's previous reads, the scenery is beautiful, the characters are a great cast and the storylines are believable and really well written.
I would recommend this to all of my blog readers, It is the perfect book to read on a beach, next to a pool or just in the garden. The publishers, Avon Books have given me an extract to share with my readers which I hope you all enjoy and that many of you go and get your own copy of One Summer in Italy to enjoy this summer.
Via
Virgilio was busy with cars, vans, the occasional lorry and a swarm of
motorbikes and scooters. Sofia didn’t rush down the hill towards the centre.
Apart from the sun already being a significant presence at just turned eleven
o’clock there were enough pedestrians occupying the pavements
to
make hurrying an effort and she enjoyed gazing around at the buildings, stone
or rendered and painted.
She’d
seen a little of the town in whatever part of each day she wasn’t on shift but
it was surprising how much of the past two weeks had been taken up with
settling in.
Her
first couple of days had passed in a whirl of unpacking, orientation, getting
sorted with uniform and a hunt for toiletries at a nearby kiosk that seemed to
sell everything. Sofia had also found herself helping Amy through orientation
and uniform. Sofia had missed out on siblings and was enjoying the novelty of
the big-sister role in which Amy seemed to have cast her.
But,
right now, with two joyous days of freedom to enjoy in Montelibertà, she was
seized by a ridiculous urge to jig around singing, ‘I’m here, I’m here, I’m
really here!’
Instead,
she strolled decorously past shops that sold shiny ceramics decorated with
splashy yellow sunflowers and succulent purple grapes. In between the shops came
pavement cafés, their parasols the same shade of ivory as those at Il Giardino.
On this upper part of the hill the commercial ventures were interspersed with
houses and apartments, lavishly ornamented with window boxes in
full
flower and lavender tumbling from the tops of garden walls. She thought the
scent of lavender would ever onwards remind her of her
feeling of euphoria.
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