There was Frances Mayes’ Under the Tuscan Sun. I read it, but the book that really makes me want to visit Italy is Rebecca Serle’s novel, One Italian Summer. And, it’s not Rome or Florence or Venice. It’s Positano on the Amalfi Coast, with its views and the food. And, really Positano is the setting for a moving mother-daughter story.
Katy Silver’s mother, Carol, had all the answers. Katy relied on her for everything, the woman who was the love of her life. But, Carol just died. And, Katy spent the last months taking care of her. It was little to give to the woman who Katy felt tied to for thirty years. Now, she’s lost. She doesn’t even know if she wants to be in her marriage to Eric anymore. After her mother got sick, she “Began to ask myself if this was the marriage I wanted to die in.”
Carol and Katy never even had the chance to travel to Positano together. It was supposed to be a mother-daughter trip so Carol could show her daughter the city she loved when she stayed there one summer. Now that her mother is no longer here, Katy decides to go there herself, and stay at Hotel Poseidon as they planned. Maybe she’d find why her mother loved it there.
When the owners of the hotel welcome her, they assure Katy that “Positano is a good place to let life return to you.” Katy, who is feeling lost and dead inside, with no idea how she’ll go on, responds immediately to the water and sunsets, to the kindness of people, to a handsome man who shares breakfast. But, she doesn’t know how to react when a woman turns around at the reception desk, and it’s her thirty-year-old mother.
For her entire life, Katy’s mother took care of her. Katy doesn’t know who she is without her mother. But, Carol at thirty isn’t the woman with all the answers. Katy has the chance to do something no one else has the chance to do. She can meet her mother as a young woman and learn that she had a life that Katy never knew. And, Carol isn’t who Katy expected.
Maybe you’ll pick up One Italian Summer for the setting, and you won’t regret it. But, this is still the story of a young woman who lived her whole life as a reflection of her mother. Now that her mother is gone, she has to decide who she is. Who are you when the person you love most in life is gone?
Rebecca Searle’s website is http://www.rebeccasearle.com
One Italian Summer by Rebecca Searle. Atria Books, 2022. ISBN 9781982166793 (hardcover), 272p.
FTC Full Disclosure – The publisher sent an ARC of the book, hoping I would review it.
I loved this book. And love your review. and yes to wanting to visit the Amalfi Coast.
I don’t think this is the book for me. Though I certainly do understand the issue of —who are you when the love of your life is gone. I think that is a universal deal.
We took a bus trip (partly to get out of the heat) from Rome to Pompeii and the Amalfi Coast on one of our trips to Italy in the mid-1970s. The scenery (we did have a stop in Amalfi itself) was gorgeous, of course.
One side comment: the air conditioner broke down on the bus, so we spent an hour driving around the grimy back streets of Naples trying to get it fixed before the driver gave up. It was still a fun trip, Pompeii was amazing. Naples, not so much.
My sister loved Pompeii as well, Jeff. When they were there, the Amalfi coast was overcrowded. I think they had a great meal, there, though. I’ve never been to Italy, and everything she says about Rome just makes me think it’s too crowded.