Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter is half off at $5.99! Switching between sixties Italy and present day, this is a mixture of historical and contemporary fiction with a man searching for a lost love. Some readers thought the story was beautiful and sentimental, while others found the characters too frustrating. I've recently been seeing this book everywhere and I'm so curious about it! Has anyone read it?
The story begins in 1962. On a rocky patch of the sun-drenched Italian coastline, a young innkeeper, chest-deep in daydreams, looks on over the incandescent waters of the Ligurian Sea and spies an apparition: a tall, thin woman, a vision in white, approaching him on a boat. She is an actress, he soon learns, an American starlet, and she is dying.
And the story begins again today, half a world away, when an elderly Italian man shows up on a movie studio's back lot-searching for the mysterious woman he last saw at his hotel decades earlier.
What unfolds is a dazzling, yet deeply human, roller coaster of a novel, spanning fifty years and nearly as many lives. From the lavish set of Cleopatra to the shabby revelry of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Walter introduces us to the tangled lives of a dozen unforgettable characters: the starstruck Italian innkeeper and his long-lost love; the heroically preserved producer who once brought them together and his idealistic young assistant; the army veteran turned fledgling novelist and the rakish Richard Burton himself, whose appetites set the whole story in motion-along with the husbands and wives, lovers and dreamers, superstars and losers, who populate their world in the decades that follow.
Gloriously inventive, constantly surprising, Beautiful Ruins is a story of flawed yet fascinating people, navigating the rocky shores of their lives while clinging to their improbable dreams.
The Supreme Marconi Company by Adriana Trigiani is $1.99! This is the final book in Trigiani's Valentine trilogy, which follows the life of a shoemaker and her big Italian family. There does seem to be some conflict on the ending of the trilogy with readers. Some had a major case of the feels, breaking out the tissues, while others said the ending seemed rather flat compared to the previous two books.
For over a hundred years, the Angelini Shoe Company in Greenwich Village has relied on the leather produced by Vechiarelli & Son in Tuscany. This historic business partnership provides the twist of fate for Valentine Roncalli, the school teacher turned shoemaker, to fall in love with Gianluca Vechiarelli, a tanner with a complex past . . . and a secret.
A piece of surprising news is revealed at The Feast of the Seven Fishes when Valentine and Gianluca join her extended family on a fateful Christmas Eve. Now faced with life altering choices, Valentine remembers the wise words that inspired her in the early days of her beloved Angelini Shoe Company: “A person who can build a pair of shoes can do just about anything.” The proud, passionate Valentine is going to fight for everything she wants and savor all she deserves — the bitter and the sweetness of life itself.
Romantic and poignant, told with humor and warmth, and bursting with a cast of endearing characters, The Supreme Macaroni Company is a sumptuous feast of delights: a portrait of a woman and the man she loves, her passion for craftsmanship, and the sacrifices it takes to build and sustain a family business while keeping love and laughter at the center of everything.
Goodreads | Amazon | BN | Kobo
What a Sicilian Husband Wants by Michelle Smart is $1.99! This category romance from Harlequin is the first book in Smart's Irresistible Sicilians series. I should probably issue a catnip warning: a runaway wife, a Sicilian millionaire husband, and a secret birth. Most readers found the book to be quick and fun, though some thought the heroine was a bit heartless. After all, she does shoot her husband within the first few pages. The second book, The Sicilian's Unexpected Duty ( A | BN | K ), is also on sale for $1.99!
On his terms only!
Moving countries, cutting all ties and giving birth to her baby alone, Grace Holden is desperately hiding from her past. But just when she thinks she might have broken free, it catches up with her in the form of her millionaire Sicilian husband!
Grace swore her daughter wouldn't grow up among the dark power and money of his family…but no one walks away from Luca Mastrangelo. Now, back within his reach, Grace is surprised to see new depths to the man she married, and each crack in his armor makes it harder to fight the desire still blazing between them.
Goodreads | Amazon | BN | Kobo
That Summer in Sicily by Marlena de Blasi is $1.99! This is a travel memoir written by Italian chef, Marlena de Blasi. Readers enjoyed the cast of characters and the decriptions of the Sicilian food and landscape, though some found they preferred de Blasi's previous food writing better. This book also has a 3.8-star rating on GR.
“At villa Donnafugata, long ago is never very far away,” writes bestselling author Marlena de Blasi of the magnificent if somewhat ruined castle in the mountains of Sicily that she finds, accidentally, one summer while traveling with her husband, Fernando. There de Blasi is befriended by Tosca, the patroness of the villa, an elegant and beautiful woman-of-a-certain-age who recounts her lifelong love story with the last prince of Sicily descended from the French nobles of Anjou.
Sicily is a land of contrasts: grandeur and poverty, beauty and sufferance, illusion and candor. In a luminous and tantalizing voice, That Summer in Sicily re-creates Tosca’s life, from her impoverished childhood to her fairy-tale adoption and initiation into the glittering life of the prince’s palace, to the dawning and recognition of mutual love. But when Prince Leo attempts to better the lives of his peasants, his defiance of the local Mafia’s grim will to maintain the historical imbalance between the haves and the have-nots costs him dearly.
The present-day narrative finds Tosca sharing her considerable inherited wealth with a harmonious society composed of many of the women–now widowed–who once worked the prince’s land alongside their husbands. How the Sicilian widows go about their tasks, care for one another, and celebrate the rituals of a humble, well-lived life is the heart of this book.
Goodreads | Amazon | BN | Kobo
Amazon has a lot of good deals in their monthly 3.99 & under sale but I’m not sure if the deals are being price matched yet.
Lion’s Lady-Julie Garwood 1.99
Destiny’s Surrender-Beverly Jenkins 1.99
Sweet Liar-Jude Deveraux 1.99
No Choice but Seduction-Johanna Lindsey
You said “shoots her husband” and I thought “TAKE MY MONEY”. This might be troubling. But I’m going with it.
Wondering, if the book is about people who make shoes ( my second favorite thing in the world ), why is it called The Supreme Macaroni Company? Not that that’s going to keep me from getting it, just, you know, cognitive dissonance.
Books set in Italy/Sicily? I’m supposed to be on a BUDGET, but the old sod, it calls to me. I’m pointing my little devil’s horn charm in the general east coast direction, Sarah. I need some protection.