Zany Renovations in Tuscany by Ivanka Di Felice

A decade ago, Canadians Ivanka and David Di Felice moved it Italy, and David acquired Italian citizenship thanks to his Italian parents. That's when Ivanka began chronicling their adventure with her delightful series of well-written and perfectly edited Zany Italy books. This is book three and it, like the others, treats us to her comic perspective on making a new life in Italy.

Comedy is difficult to write, but seemingly not so difficult for Mrs. Di Felice. She is blessed with that special talent of being able to be in a situation, yet also see it from an outsider's perspective, thus she can see the humor in even the oddest, most frustrating situations. If you were ever curious about starting a new life in Italy, you will get a very accurate impression from this book and the previous two books.

The books to date in the Zany Italy series:

1. A Zany Slice of Italy
2. A Zany Slice of Tuscany
3. Zany Renovations in Tuscany
4. One still to come...

Book 1 in her Zany Memoirs, an Amazon Bestseller

The subject of this book is one that most readers will find very odd: the couple renovate a rental property. Dilapidated dumps are seemingly often rented out in Italy, with the owners expecting the renters to fix them up, and install a kitchen and heating on their own dime. Welcome to Italy! We are treated to vignettes with neighbors, workmen, animals, landlords, other immigrants, and family members.

The internet is transforming Italy just as it is transforming the rest of the world. Products are available online for home delivery, including a vast array of second-hand articles, which the economical couple take advantage of, even with the frustrating experiences with couriers. There are also some wonderful experiences with Italians who drive for hours to find just the right piece, and for some adventure on the weekend.

 Book 2 in her Zany Memoirs, also an Amazon Besteseller

There is a wonderful level of maturity in this book, now that Ivanka has reached the half-century mark, and lived in Italy for a decade. She is more patient and accepting of the drawbacks of Italian life, like the archaic banking and other service sectors, including a government that doesn't consider itself a service. As Ivanka says:

One of the reasons we came to Italy was for the slower pace of lie; now we have it and can't complain.

My favorite chapter in this book is “Happy Anniversary” (except for when they leave the dogs in the car!) because it shows the development of her relationship with her in-laws who were featured prominently in the first book. Part of her mellowing with them is due to great loss: many of the family's elderly relatives have passed away over the decade, and her own father sadly passed away sending the author into a long period of grief.

Ivanka's Memoirs About her Unusual Childhood in Canada

My biggest worry for Mrs. Di Felice is that her husband is using her for a workhorse, just as mine did for years, and that she will pay for it as I have, with many physical debilities. Stop that, David Di Felice! Stop that, right now! With their home fixed up, and hidden from the owner so he won't sell it out from under them or rent out at a higher rate, the author deserves some rest and recuperation, for the rest of her days, if you ask me!

I look forward to book number four, which the author says will be the last. I'm not convinced, however. Her quirky mind, and constantly evolving life in Italy will provide much more comic material in the years to come.

From the book's description:

When Ivanka and David Di Felice discover the downside of their “too good to be true” Chianti region house, they resume searching for their dream home in Tuscany.

Join them on a harrowing journey as professional house hunters, while you peek into Tuscan villas, apartments, and haylofts. At long last, they find an idyllic spot, surrounded by rolling hills graced with vineyards and olive groves, distant stone villas, and clusters of cypress trees. But the home has been vacant for years. Follow their adventures as they embark on renovations, endeavouring to bring the abandoned house and garden back to life.

If you’ve ever imagined packing it in and moving to Italy, the book also provides practical advice on how to do so.

As always, a cast of quirky characters enters their lives, and the author’s candid, sympathetic viewpoint captures their charm and the local color.

Can Ivanka and David finally relax and sit back with a bottle of Chianti wine to watch the sun set over the Tuscan hills? Escape to Italy in this witty, heartfelt travel memoir, Zany Renovations, to find out.

This book can be read as a stand-alone or feel free to tag along for more laugh out loud adventures in Italy by reading Ivanka's A Zany Slice of Italy and A Zany Slice of Tuscany.

Here is a direct link to the book at Amazon.com:

Worlds Within Verona's Walls by Vivienne Raffaele

The lives of three British ex-patriots in Verona, Italy, change over the course of one year, in this episodic novel. It might have especial appeal for fans of English mini-series or evening soap-operas. The same attention to detail and colloquial dialogue is on show here, dosed with a strong ring of truth (the author is a British ex-pat living not far from Verona).

The three women represent three phases of an immigrant's life: the long-term emigrant who has adapted to life as the perennial outsider, the immigrant of a few years who is still struggling to find her place and some peace of mind, the newcomer who struggles with even the basics in a foreign culture. Each comes head-on with cultural differences, and deals with homesickness and isolation, which is softened by their shared friendship.

Of course, she realized that like many people who have lived abroad for a long time, she would forever be a foreigner.

Verona is described with love and frustration, just as I imagine a local would describe it. There are vivid descriptions of her beauty and history, combined with the practical complaints of a resident. The same can be said of the description of Italians, too! The lust for life, hospitality, and rich cultural history is laid out alongside the horrendous traffic, the high cost of living, the too high a value placed on superficial appearances, and the unhealthy attachment between many sons and mothers.

The centuries long love affair between the British and Italy is explained along the way to a certain extent:

We love Italians because they are loud and friendly and hospitable.

The climate had been one of the chief reasons for her decision to move to Italy...

There is lots of gentle humor in this pleasant read. It feels like the reader is keeping up with three friends who have moved to Italy, with accounts of their small and large adventures explained via long mails. The third-person limited narration moves between the three protagonists, so we get to see their points of view clearly, one by one.

“Worlds Within Verona's Walls” (an awkward title in my humble opinion) is written in clear and educated English that is well-edited. For any Italophile curious about what it would be like to move to Italy, this light, clean read by a woman who emigrated to Italy is an informative and entertaining place to start.

From the book's description:

Part romance, part engaging commentary on life in Italy: a lively and at times hilarious account of the lives, loves and interweaving stories of three English teachers at the same school whose friendship develops over the course of the academic year.

The novel is set in a city inextricably linked to romance and famous for its star-crossed lovers, but also packed with history and dominated by the magnificent Roman amphitheatre. Against this backdrop, the three women, at very different stages in their lives, have to come to terms with the reality of living and working in a country renowned for its culture, cuisine and sunny climes, but at the same time beset by bureaucracy and hampered by ingrained cultural attitudes.

Here is a direct link to the book at Amazon.com:

Please visit the author on Facebook.


Enjoy a 3 minute video guide to Verona by famous travel writer Rick Steves:

Return to Glow by Chandi Wyant

The subtitle of this book is A Pilgrimage of Transformation in Italy, and it falls in the genre “Women traveling to get over divorce/breakdown/depression/and or mid-life crisis”, within the sub-genre “Travel to Italy”. Actually, the book is less the purported memoirs of a walk along Italy's ancient pilgrimage route, the Via Francigena, and more an autobiography that includes the childhood, adolescence and adulthood of the author, and even background on the author's family.

The writing is educated and well-edited, with beautiful quotes from literature and poetry to illustrate many important points. At times the writing rises to the romantic lyricism of Marlena di Blasi in her famous A Thousand Days in Venice. At other times the subjects covered by the author seem less for romantics and more for fans of schadenfreude, or for armchair-analysts. Those latter parts were my least favorite. They always make me cringe and say a silent prayer that the author has at least changed the names of the people she exposes.

 Siena's Cathedral

As a pilgrim along part of the Catholic religious route of pilgrimage, the Via Francigena, we learn a lot from the author about the places she visits during her ill-conceived trip of healing, which leaves her physically worse off than at the start. Psychologically, she feels she has healed quite a bit through her ordeal, and the time it gave her to reflect critically on her life choices. We are given a front row seat to her ruminations and remembrances. Honestly, too many of them brought back bad memories of my own, so I can recommend the book only to those readers who won't suffer the same upsetting flashbacks.

So what exactly happened to set the author out to conquer her demons and rediscover her lust for life (her glow)? First, she did the very modern-day thing for worldly, well-educated women: she married down. It is such a common phenomenon these days that it is even a major plot element of the popular TV show “Modern Family”. The author belatedly realized her mistake and ended the ten year marriage. Second, she had a near-death experience coupled with a horrific, trauma-inducing stay in an Italian hospital that left her with lasting poor health. (If you have a hospital phobia, as I do, those parts of the book may be unreadable!)

 Cinqueterre, a detour for the author

Who comes off badly in the book? Airlines, doctors, the ex-husband, some friends and family, the hole-riddled U.S. social net, and the U.S. jobs market that can't provide secure, good-paying, full-time jobs with benefits for highly educated people. Italy comes off the best in the book. The sections set in Italy clearly show the author's love of the country, the Italian people and the culture. The author admits:

Learning Italian is the greatest gift I have given myself.

For Italophiles, there is much to enjoy in the book. You'll need to be a fan of this genre of book, Female Travel Therapy, however, to really enjoy the whole book. This is not a guide to the Via Francigena. This is an autobiography of an Italophile who endured the pilgrimage route, ill-prepared for its challenges, while attempting to jump-start her life.

 San Gimignano

From the book's description:

In her early forties, Chandi Wyant’s world implodes in the wake of a divorce and traumatic illness. Determined to embrace life by following her heart, she sets out on Italy’s historic pilgrimage route, the Via Francigena, to walk for forty days to Rome.

Weakened by her recent illness, she walks over the Apennines, through the valleys of Tuscany, and beside busy highways on her 425-kilometer trek equipped with a nineteen-pound pack, two journals, and three pens.

Return to Glow chronicles this journey that is both profoundly spiritual and ruggedly adventuresome. As Chandi traverses this ancient pilgrim’s route, she rediscovers awe in the splendor of the Italian countryside and finds sustenance and comfort from surprising sources. Drawing on her profession as a college history instructor, she gracefully weaves in relevant anecdotes, melding past and present in this odyssey toward her soul.

This delightful, transporting tale awakens the senses while inviting readers to discover their own inner glow by letting go of fixed expectations, choosing courage over comfort, and following their heart.

Here is a direct link to the book at Amazon.com:

Please visit the author's website where she offers great advice to those who wish to emigrate to Italy. 

Here's a short video to give you an idea of the route and travelers, made in English by a Dutch couple who start at the Via Francigena's beginning, in Canterbury, England.

Dreaming of Venice by T.A. Williams

Advertised as a feel-good-read, the young woman at the center of this story goes on a fairy tale sort of adventure and is rewarded with a fairy tale ending. Her journey is picaresque, with twists and turns in her path to romance and financial security. She deals with various different romantic interests: men from her past, some in her present, and some in her dreams about Venice.

Dreaming of Venice is an accurate title since the English protagonist doesn't actually get to Venice until the end of the book, after dreaming of the Italian city throughout the story. If you are looking for a book set in Venice, this isn't it. Most of the story takes place in England, and mostly in London. Non-Brits should be prepared for English amounts of alcohol in daily life (massive!), and English reverse snobbery (“Her accent was very posh, but her smile was friendly.”)

The young woman at the center of the story enters into an unusual agreement that comes with lots of perks, both financial and personal. Her life changes dramatically as she earns more money, opening up a new social life, creative life (she is a painter), better living conditions, better friends (her early ones are rather disgusting, with copious sexually inappropriate suggestions, like that she should prostitute herself!!!), better access to healthcare, and improved personal welfare.

This author always writes smooth prose, in this case 3rd-person limited narrative, that is gently educational, full of life lessons. With the exception of the gross and ignorant friends who think prostitution is a wonderful job for a woman, the book is light entertainment, a fairy tale story for a deserving young woman.

Here is the book's description:

Find love, friendship and Prosecco – in the magical city of Venice

Life is tough for Penny. A dead end job in a London café, a boyfriend in Australia (what could go wrong?) and an art career going nowhere. But then Penny is approached with an extraordinary proposition.

It isn’t going to be easy but, if she can pull it off, she will turn her life around and at long last see the fulfillment of her dream – to visit Venice. And, just maybe, find true happiness with the handsome man of her dreams.

But can dreams come true?

Here is a direct link to the book at Amazon.com:

Please visit the author's website.

Omnibus Italian Romance and Passion by Jayne Castel

These are four realistic-feeling tales whose romantic stories begin, as many modern love stories do, with passion and a strong physical attraction. However each couple featured in the stories has the potential build their relationship into a more loving and lasting one.

In each story the female protagonist is a woman from an English-speaking country visiting Italy for family, pleasure and work, and she becomes involved with an Italian man.

The four short romance stories in the Omnibus:

• A Roman Summer
• Neapolitan Encounter
• Florentine Awakening
• Venetian Distraction

Each story is well-written escapist fiction that moves along quickly with just enough detail to put the reader in Italy and in the interesting scenes. The author is clearly familiar with Italian culture and language, which adds more realism to the stories.

I especially enjoyed the realistic portrayal of the western women's point of view on Italy. The protagonist of A Roman Summer, for example, is a first time visitor to Italy. Her first impressions when exhausted concern women's struggles with sexual harassment, the heat in summer, the difficulty of managing uneven cobblestones in heels, the horrible traffic and the deafening noise.

The protagonist of Neapolitan Encounter thinks at one especially difficult point in her story:

She'd just about had enough of Italian men today.

When the women are rested they notice the many fashionable men, the ever-present facade in behavior, the sexual directness and volatile expressiveness of many Italians, and the beauty of the non-modern architecture. They notice the food, too, of course. Each of the women show their appreciation for the food, with one protagonist thinking:

The men could be odious here but the food was incredible.

Eventually she learns to appreciate the good qualities of one Italian man in particular.

Like all good short stories, the endings stimulate the readers' imagination to invent their own future for the protagonists, with the writer providing clues to use as starting points. The books are clean with no sex scenes detailed, only suggested. I enjoyed the short escapes to Italy very much!

From the book's description:

A collection of contemporary romance novellas set in Rome, Naples, Florence and Venice - that will sweep you away!

From Rome's dolce vita and the gritty streets of Naples, to the rolling hills of Tuscany and the twisting canals of Venice, four 'must-reads' for romance fans who are passionate about Italy.

A Roman Summer

Kay Starling visits Rome with the hope of persuading her sister to give up her Roman lover and return home to her responsibilities. However, she hadn't counted on falling for Alessandro Falcone - the brooding brother of her sister's lover...

Neapolitan Encounter

Luisa Durasanti witnesses a mafia shooting on the streets of Naples - an incident that turns her dream holiday into a nightmare. Of course, her attraction to Commissario Valerio Catanese, the enigmatic police inspector in charge of the investigation, is just an added complication...

Florentine Awakening

Vanessa Woods' romantic holiday in Tuscany with her boyfriend is quickly turning into a disaster. When her relationship disintegrates, it takes a few days in Florence, and a young chef named Marco Tirelli to take Vanessa's Tuscan holiday in an entirely unexpected direction...

Venetian Distraction

Faye Wilson is in Venice for the Biennale, to do a story on one of Italy's most promising young artists - Massimiliano Paolini. When the interview escalates into an argument, Faye storms off, determined never to set eyes on Max Paolini again. However, she doesn't suspect what the evening has in store for her...

Here is a direct link to the Omnibus at Amazon.com:

 

Please visit the prolific author's website/blog.

Giulia Goes to War (Legacy of Honor Series) by Joan Leotta

Looking for a gift for a hyphenated Italian tween or teen? Or know an adult who enjoys clean historical fiction featuring hyphenated Italians? If yes, then this series of novellas may be for you. The author has four books in her Legacy of Honor Series, each featuring hyphenated Italians serving in a war effort for the United States of America.

Volume One: Giulia Goes to War is about a young first generation Italian-American during World War II. She wants to join in the war effort just like her two brothers who are in the military, and her parents who work on the home front collecting resources for the military equipment factories.

Giulia gets what she wants when she starts work at a plant near home, but then she gets much more than she bargained for with a love interest and an adventure that involves national security.

The love story between two people from very different backgrounds shows up the conservatism of the era (1943+) when like married like, and the twain did not mix. Other social elements of the era come through too, like the sexism, segregation, patriotism, entertainments, communication, and marriage traditions.

The book is rich with historical detail but it never bogs the story down. The author has a clear, clean and polished writing style. Her warmth and understanding of the immigrant experience shines through. She has a clear loves of Italian culture.

This book, and the others in the Legacy of Honor Series, should appeal to tweens, teens and adults who like clean romances set in the past, enlivened by some intrigue and adventure. If you are a hyphenated Italian, you should enjoy these books even more. I think they would make a great gift for young ladies who like to learn more about history through fiction.

Legacy of Honor Series:

• Volume One: Giulia Goes to War
• Volume Two: Letters from Korea
• Volume Three: A Bowl of Rice
• Volume Four: Secrets of the Heart

Volume One: Giulia Goes to War

From the book's description:

Wartime work draws Giulia DeBartolo out of her close Western Pennsylvania family into a world of intrigue, spies and new friends in Wilmington, North Carolina's shipyard building Liberty ships. Giulia soon discovers supporting the war effort can include fun evenings like dancing with young servicemen at the local USO. It is at one of these dances she meets John O'Shea, an unsuitable suitor according to her old-fashioned parents.

As they grapple with the problems of their own budding relationship, John and Giulia encounter a Nazi spy tasked with blowing up part of the Wilmington shipyard. Saving the shipyard from the spy may prove easier than convincing her parents to let her marry John. Giulia must decide what it means to be a good daughter while still following her own heart.

Volume Two: Letters From Korea

From the book's description:

Sal sends Gina (Giulia's sister) newsy letters from Korea and in turn, Gina's talk about Matt's daily flower gifts. Will her ploy make Sal realize he loves her, or backfire on her and discourage him?

The situation becomes more complex when Sal meets a Korean widow with a young child who offers to teach Sal, a pharmacist, the herbal cures of Korea. Of course, Gina is jealous. The relationship between Gina and Sal is about to take a turn for the worse when Sal loses his leg in a bombing attempt to free one of the North Korean prisoners.

At home, Gina finds that someone has made her the scapegoat for stolen files from the Salk polio research project where she works. Fortunately for the two of them, they have a Legacy of Honor in their families they can rely on to help them overcome their difficulties and maybe their own stubbornness about each other as well.

Volume Three: A Bowl of Rice

From the book's description:

Anna Maria O'Shea (Giulia's daughter) became a nurse to continue her family's Legacy of Honor.

In choosing to stick to her commitment to service she looses her long-time college love. The pain of war is stronger than her private heartache.

Is Mark, the handsome physician, the balm her soul needs? Or is it George who will claim heal her wounds with a love that transcends war and the pain she sees all around her?

Volume Four: Secrets of the Heart

From the book's description:

In the middle of the night in January, 1865, two Union soldiers set out on a reconnaissance mission just before the battle of Fort Fisher, North Carolina. Rinaldo DeBartolo wants to finish the mission and to return to Italy and his sweetheart, Emilia. When he and his partner, Walter discover hidden gold, a trail of secrets begins.

That trail winds through the Italian unification, two world wars and a tangle of immigration to reach into Rome Italy in the 1990s at the time of Desert Storm. There the descendants of the American De Bartolo family meet Rinaldo's descendants.

Kathy Ann, the youngest of the clan is working a gap year as a journalist. Her writing endeavors and the family's reunion become complicated by romance, stolen art, and the discovery that not all secrets, even family secrets, are good ones.

Please visit the author's website/blog.

For information on Italians in Pennsylvania. 

This book is available for those who want to know more about Italians of Northeastern Pennsylvania (by Stephanie Longo)

From the book's description:

Every Labor Day weekend, hundreds of thousands of people flock to Courthouse Square in Scranton for the largest ethnic festival in northeastern Pennsylvania: La Festa Italiana. The Italians of this region have been proudly celebrating their heritage since their arrival in this country with traditional festivals, including La Corsa dei Ceri in Jessup and Dunmore’s procession in honor of St. Rocco. Using vintage and recent photographs, Italians of Northeastern Pennsylvania shows how the Italian immigrants to this area, some of whom arrived with little more than the clothes on their back, became well-respected community leaders. Through hard work and dedication, they have made northeastern Pennsylvania into an area that defines the term “ethnic pride.”

The Graveyard of the Hesperides (Flavia Albia Series) by Lindsey Davis

The author of this relatively new series took a chance when she departed from her long-running Falco series in style, target audience and even sub-genre. I was a so-so fan of Falco, and I suppose you could call me a so-so fan of Flavia Albia, too, after reading this entry in the series, but I suspect I'm not the target audience for Flavia's adventures. I'm the right sex but I'm much too old.

The book's alternate and U.K. cover

The Falco series, for those who don't know, is an Ancient Rome Private Investigator series narrated in classic P.I. hard-boiled first-person by butch Falco. It holds great appeal for male and female readers alike. It is fast-paced and sticks to the case like an arrow, with only some humorous and romantic side steps involving Falco's family and love life. 

There is plenty of information provided about life in the Roman Empire, not all of it well-integrated into the stories. Falco writes from his perspective of old age, looking back on his cases and his life.

The Flavia Albia series, of which Graveyard of the Hesperides is book number 4, is written in first-person narrative style from the young woman Flavia's point of view, but it is anything but hard-boiled. It reads as if it were a combination of Flavia's case notes and personal diary written with very little of Falco's hindsight. 

In classic British detective fiction style there is much musing about the case, much theorizing, and lots of side story concerning the main character's inner thoughts and fears. It holds most appeal for female readers, especially those near the same age as Flavia. In fact, all the U.S. versions of the books have a young woman, presumably Flavia, on the cover. 

The historical information is better integrated into the story than in the Falco books, but it might be more than some readers wanted to know.

While the U.K. books with their more adult covers have the subtitle “Falco: The New Generation”, since Falvia Albia is Falco's daughter, I suspect that only a fraction of the loyal readers of the Falco series will find the Flavia Albia series to their liking. It is presumably intended for a new reading public for the author, which as I wrote above is a risky thing for an established author to do. On her website she says the series allowed her to present a:

...caustic Albia giving us her refreshing new perspective on the traditional Roman world from the viewpoint of a woman and an outsider.

What should you know about this book and this series besides the above? Well...

• There is the roman society's greatest evil, slavery.
• The actual crime plot in this book was not new to me. I recognized it the moment the crime unfolded, probably from classic mystery fiction, but that is quite common these days of public domain data dump on the Internet.
• Flavia Albia is a bit of a drag for older readers since she is a perfectly drawn young woman much concerned with her love life, and not really that experienced with life in general despite her rough background.
• Much of the dialog is related to us via Flavia rather than writing it out as dialog.
• There is a clash between the British-isms and the U.S. Spelling and punctuation (in the U.S. Edition only presumably).
• It takes place in the reign of Roman Emperor Domitian, with the inclusion of some other historical figures.
• The Falco clan appear but are not allowed to speak directly, only through Flavia's accounts of events.
• There are animal sacrifices, prostitutes, abortionists and some vulgarities, besides dead bodies of course.
• Flavia is provided with New-Adult-appropriate hunky love interests.

The books in the Flavia Albia Series:

1. The Ides of April
2. Enemies at Home
3. Deadly Election
4. The Grave of the Hesperides
5. The Spook Who Spoke Again (Yes, I agree, that is a very offensive title for the U.S. market, but it is a title the author used in a Falco book for a play Falco wrote that is very similar in plot to Shakespeare's Hamlet. It is staged in this book, written from the perspective of Falco's youngest child.)

From the book's description:

In first century Rome, Flavia Albia, the daughter of Marcus Didius Falco, has taken up her father's former profession as an informer. On a typical day, it's small cases---cheating spouses, employees dipping into the till---but this isn't a typical day. Her beloved, the plebeian Manlius Faustus, has recently moved in and decided that they should get married in a big, showy ceremony as part of beginning a proper domestic life together.

Also, his contracting firm has been renovating a rundown dive bar called The Garden of the Hesperides, only to uncover human remains buried in the backyard. There have been rumors for years that the previous owner of the bar, now deceased, killed a bar maid and these are presumably her remains. In the choice between planning a wedding and looking into a crime from long ago, Albia would much rather investigate a possible murder. Or murders, as more and more remains are uncovered, revealing that something truly horrible has been going on at the Hesperides.

As she gets closer to the truth behind the bodies in the backyard, Albia's investigation has put her in the cross-hairs---which might be the only way she'll get out of the wedding and away from all her relatives who are desperate to 'help.'

Here is a direct link to the book's page at Amazon.com:

Please visit the author's website.

I have a page on this site about the author's Falco series.

Silence of the Lamps (Caprice de Luca Mysteries) by Karen Rose Smith

The amateur sleuth in this cute cozy mystery series is an Italian-American small business owner, Caprice de Luca.  She stages homes for sale, so the book includes much about furniture and lifestyle, and even recipes and cooking, thanks to Caprice's sister Nicoletta's catering career (third sister, Bella, runs a sewing business).

Book One in the series.
Click the cover to visit the book's Amazon.com page.

Being a cute cozy, along with the light mystery story we get lots of sweet interaction by Caprice with charming and amusing family members, a best girl friend, a desirable chaste boyfriend, and various adorable cats and dogs.  There is the requisite small town setting and conservative values, along with an odd dash of new-age thinking and mantras.

Book Two in the series.
Click the cover to visit the book's Amazon.com page.

The narrative style is the genre's usual 3rd person limited mixed with some 3rd person omniscient at times.  The genre's elements are faithfully followed.  The recipes are clearly made for U.S. American readers, not terribly original, and not all Italian inspired.

Book Three in the series.
Click the cover to visit the book's Amazon.com page.

This cute cozy mystery novel is clean and simple, making it suitable for tweens, teens and adults.  The cute pastel covers of the series' books are cartoonish, showing that the stress is on sweet entertainment rather then the crimes that set Caprice investigating.

Book Four in the series.
Click the cover to visit the book's Amazon.com page.

The books in the Caprice de Luca Mystery Series to date:

1. Staged to Death
2. Deadly Décor
3. Gilt by Association
4. Drape Expectations
5. Silence of the Lamps
6. Shades of Wrath (coming soon)

From the book's description (beware, there are spoilers):

Business has never been better for home stager Caprice De Luca, but her personal life could stand a few renovations.  Just when she thought things were getting serious with her boyfriend Grant, his pretty ex-wife swoops into town and nabs his attention.

Uncle Dom is living with her parents and desperately needs a new job.  And her sister Nikki's catering business is threatened when rival Drew Pierson starts eating away at her share of the market.  Things could not possibly get more chaotic when Drew is found bludgeoned to death by one of his grandmother's antique Tiffany lamps--and Nikki is the number one suspect.

Now, Caprice must act fast to illuminate the truth and clear her sister's name--before a cold-blooded killer puts her lights out next…

Here is a direct link to the book at Amazon.com:

Please visit the author's website.

Cappuccinos, Cupcakes, and a Corpse (Cape Bay Cafe Mystery)

This is the first book in a cozy mystery series that features an Italian-American woman named Francesca Amaro.  Francesca is a third generation American, having grown up in a small coastal town in the US state of Massachusetts, and later worked in New York City.  She returns to the small town after her mother's passing, to take over the family business, an Italian café.

Part of the plot of the first book in the series relates to how Francesca overcomes her grief.  She is quickly joined in the grieving process by an old friend, Matt, who loses his father in mysterious circumstances.  Matt and Francesca join forces to find out what happened to the father, and to deal with the grief and the uncertainty about how to live their lives from that point forward.  All that loss makes the start to this cozy series not as light and humorous as other cute cozy mystery series.

The books in the Cape Bay Café Mystery Series to date are:

1. Cappuccinos, Cupcakes, and a Corpse
2. Tea, Tiramisu, and Tough Guys
3. Margaritas, Marzipan and Murder

Cozy conventions are followed in the book, with the amateur sleuth having a link to the deceased (actually, she finds the deceased too), then she pursues the investigation for a good-hearted reason, tripping over the police as she investigates in the closed community for the killer in their midst.  She may protest about her new role, but Francesca actually loves the distraction.

I was a former public relations manager turned café owner and artisan barista, not a detective.

The third-person limited perspective keeps us in Francesca's mind throughout the story.  The book has much about friendship, with Francesca learning to accept the affection offered by the good-hearted small town residents.  She slowly begins to recreate her life, bit by bit, with a new home, new friends, a new pet, and a new life in a tourist area owning and working in a tourist business.  The process continues over the rest of the books in the series.

There is a light love interest, too, for Francesca, which is in line with the genre, and it is chaste, as is the convention with cute cozies, verses the traditional cozy mysteries which allow for more realistic sexual relationships.  Put a stray dog in the mix, and you have a cute cozy that is suitable for tweens and teens as well as adults.  The covers are very cute too.

Book Two in the Series

The writing is at a simple, clear level, but there are still too many typos and verb errors in the text.  Hopefully they will be edited out soon.  And the two recipes that are included at the end of the book (there are two recipes at the end of each book in the series) are not particularly Italian, with the first one missing some instructions, which means not all the ingredients are actually mixed together! 

Those quibbles aside, the book and the series is light reading with a hint of Italian, for Italophile fans of cute cozies.

Book Three in the Series

From the book's description:

From USA TODAY BESTSELLING AUTHOR Harper Lin: a new cozy mystery series with recipes!

Francesca Amaro moves back to her hometown of Cape Bay, Massachusetts, and takes over the family business, Antonia’s Italian Café. She spends her days making delicious artisan cappuccinos, until she stumbles upon her neighbor’s dead body. When the police discover Mr. Cardosi was poisoned, Francesca becomes a suspect.

The victim’s son, Matty, happens to be Francesca’s old high school friend. Together, they uncover the secrets of the locals in order to find the killer in their idyllic beach town.

Includes two special cupcake recipes!

Here is a direct link to the book at Amazon.com (where the e-book version is often offered for FREE):

Please visit the author's website.