Summer in Tuscany

Summer in Tuscany by Elizabeth Adler
Contemporary Fiction
Finished on 4/20/06
Rating: A- (8/10 Very Good)

What if we went to Italy

A suitcase of books and one bag a piece for the summer

I don't speak a word of Italian

Except for Campari and soda for two, how much is a Lire

Yes, a villa will do and a breeze, in Tuscany please

What if we spent all of our days,

improving our minds, learning new ways to be lazy

It wouldn't be too much of a strain

Relax after breakfast till lunch comes around

Can't wait for dinner, oh, I need to lie down

And refuel, out by the pool

What if the ancients were lazy like us

Too blissed out to paint, to sketch or to sculpt

Just as relaxed as the tower of Pisa

Not ever missing that old Mona Lisa

What if we never got back on the plane

As summer turned colder and then warmer again

Losing all track of the passing of years

Till it no longer mattered how long we'd been here

What if we went to Italy

Maybe next year, just you and me for the summer

I still can't speak any Italian

But words are replaced under Siennese skies

By nothing so much as a nod, and a sigh,

and a wish to be always like this

What If We Went To Italy is one of my all-time favorite songs by Mary Chapin Carpenter. I would love nothing more than to pack a bag of books and spend a month in villa in Italy. Until then, books like Elizabeth Adler’s Summer in Tuscany will just have to suffice. I thoroughly enjoyed this light & breezy read that made my mouth water for delicious Italian cooking and my heart long for the beautiful countryside and art found in the museums and piazzas. I immediately fell into the narrative, quickly engrossed in Gemma Jericho’s crazy life (as an ER doctor) with her 14-year-old daughter, Livvie, and elderly mother as they left the hustle and bustle of New York City for the calm, relaxing hills of Tuscany, returning to Nonna’s childhood home to sort out a mysterious inheritance.

This isn’t a great work of literature (the daughter’s voice, full of “like” and “y’know” seemed a tad bit overdone), yet I hesitate to say it’s simply a romance, either. It’s more like a bit of brain candy or fluff that borders on the romance side (a la Danielle Steele), but with a little more substance. But just barely. It’s fairly predictable, but not so much that I was annoyed. Gemma reminded me a bit of Janet Evanovich’s klutzy bounty hunter, Stephanie Plum, providing several laugh-out-loud passages that kept the story from becoming too sappy and sentimental.

I love discovering a new author and am anxious to take another armchair vacation with one of Adler’s heroines. I have Invitation to Provence in my stacks and can’t wait to read it this summer. Meanwhile, I plan to hang on to Summer in Tuscany for future reference. The author has spent a lot of time in Italy and although the village she writes about doesn’t exist, many of the restaurants, shops, hotels and tourist attractions are real.

If you’re looking for an entertaining “feel good” book to help escape the rainy days of spring, I recommend Summer in Tuscany. And perhaps to set the mood, a nice glass of wine and Mary Chapin Carpenter playing in the background. Ciao!