Moonlight in Tuscany by Kate Fitzroy

Moonlight in Tuscany is a Goldilocks story of a woman who, after three tries, finds the love of her life.  Along the way, she also develops to her emotional, professional and sexual peak.  There are many titillating sex scenes, but the author includes nothing vulgar or explicit.

This is a novel that would appeal most to so-called new adult women, giving them a vicarious experience with three lovers and some idea of what to expect when looking for a mate who will fit well with a modern professional woman's lifestyle.

I'm not a new adult, so my review may be a bit skewed for many potential readers.  As a mature woman, I found that the relationships Lily had during the course of the story brought back too many bittersweet, and sometimes outright painful, memories from my own relationships.  That limited my enjoyment of the book.

Dr. Lily Fairfax, a Cambridge University scholar of medieval Italian history (which brings her to Italy in the course of the book), is the protagonist.  She's a Titian beauty with golden-red hair, and intellectual who hides from her emotions by intellectualizing her experiences.  She finds it a struggle to:

...enter real life, not escape into fiction or history...

The third person limited narration puts us deep into Lily's thoughts.  Sometimes I found that a bit stifling, because I didn't always like Lily's thoughts.  She's quietly confident to outsiders, but inside her head that can seem like arrogance and selfishness.  That style of narration is one that many readers have come to expect these days, especially the target reader of female new adults.

Lily can be a struggle to like at times.  She is almost too perfect, with her only seeming flaws being jealousy and intellectual arrogance.  She is gorgeous, successful, smart, confident, with a loving parent, and she's sexy.

The last trait is one that develops during the course of the book as she becomes more comfortable with her sexual nature.  I suppose if a reader is going to fantasize along with the protagonist, she would like to imagine herself so perfect too, so the protagonist fits well with the book's overall concept of new adult fantasy.

The readers follows Lily as she:

entered a new lightweight world of fun

Lily's lightweight world of fun turns serious when she starts breaking hearts.  That is when a mature female character is brought into the story to dish out this advice:

You're a beautiful woman, bellissima, you are certain to break many hearts before you find the right one.

The woman offers Lily a shoulder to cry on, and someone to confide in, especially when she is suffering the painful feeling of loss that comes with the end of a relationship.  The woman also offers the unrealistic idea that:

Somewhere out there would be a man that would be everything she desired.

That lack of realism that recurs throughout the book gives it a strong fantasy feeling.  Even the author admits it through her characters who reflect that their love story is like a sweet film romance that is too good to be true.  Yes, the final lover is too good to be true, but that is part of the fantasy fun for the reader.

On a serious note, I missed a mention of safe birth control, since the lifestyle the book describes for modern woman is not possible with out it, and because in a book for new adults it is responsible to mention it.

Lily is quite open to flings, and that sort of lifestyle brings with it dangers not just of unintended pregnancy, but of disease and violence from putting oneself in an intimate situation with a stranger.  None of those things are even hinted at in the book, despite Lily feeling:

It's as though I am in the real world at last.

All of that makes me consider the book more of a fantasy story, than a character study or a novel about a woman developing her knowledge of herself.  The Goldilocks three lovers adds to the fantasy feeling, too.

In the back of my mature female mind, however, I had my doubts about Lily's final, perfect partner, but I'll keep them to myself, to leave the younger reader a chance to discover those things on her own.  Not everything a new adult needs to know can be found in a novel! 

 

From the book's description:

Clever Doctor Lily Fairfax is the youngest don at Cambridge... beautiful, too.  But does she understand the meaning of love?  Leaving her sheltered academic life for a long summer in Tuscany, she finds passion... but is this love or lust?  Can it endure?  Can she give up everything she has worked for and achieved for a new and different life?  Intelligent enough to analyse her own psyche, she still struggles to find the reality that her inner soul is searching for... the complete happiness that only true love can give?

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

The author has another new adult romance set in Tuscany, which I've reviewed on this site:  Dreams of Tuscany.  And she has several romances set in Provence, France.  Please visit her Amazon.com author's page.

 

What Happens in Tuscany by T.A. Williams

Looking for a book to gift to a young woman going out into the world on her own for the first time?  What Happens in Tuscany is a New Adult novel that attempts to teach young women useful life lessons in the guise of a contemporary romance novel. 

Katie has to teach Victoria about modern life.  That is the premise that allows the author to include all sorts of lessons for young women today.  Katie herself is an example of how to behave, as she tries to recover from a bad romantic breakup, and to set her sights on her future.

The story is set in England (the first third) and in Tuscany, Italy.  The major characters are English, which may have contributed to the one problem I noticed with the life lessons.  The lessons did not warn against excessive alcohol consumption, a major social problem in Britain for the young people, possibly because it is accepted as socially normal.  Be aware that social and cultural references are English, which might confuse some U.S. readers.

So, what life lessons might your young woman receive from this book?  Here goes:

• Managing personal finances
• Personal and social responsibilities
• Moral decisions
• Sexual mores
• Social situations including flirting, dating, physical love, relationships
• Dealing with pain, anger, jealousy, envy, and life's setbacks
• Maintaining a healthy weight
• Educational choices and job prospects
• Acceptance of our parents as flawed
• Dealing with loss, and the death of parents
• Compassion and kindness and tolerance of differences

There is a very thin plot to encompass all those lessons.  To be honest, the plot would not likely be enough to entertain a grown woman; it would be too dull.  But a young woman might find the book engrossing, especially since a new hunky guy enters the picture every few chapters. 

While sometimes promoted as a romantic-comedy, I think that is misleading, and there is very slight humor in the book.  It reads more like a British soap, with the happenings of the young women progressing like episodes.   

Victoria is super-wealthy, so we are treated to the fantasy of what it might be like to have so much money, and to the truth that expensive Italy is so much nicer if you are rich.

It was a magnificent Florentine Villa...huge...ancient grove of trees...balustraded terrace...

You get the idea.  There is also lots of shopping with unlimited debit cards. 

I'm not sure young adults or new adults would buy the book for themselves, but it might make a wonderful gift for a loved one.  If you are worried about the book pushing morality you don't approve of onto your impressionable young reader, you should know that the author goes out of the way to stress that everyone has to choose their own moral road in life. 

With that said, it is true that Katie and Victoria are modern women with money, freedom, and that they are seemingly magnets for hunky men.  The young women have access to reliable birth control but that is something that is skirted around and hinted at, and left to the reader to decide what is right for herself. 

I can't help but think the book is lacking in lessons concerning sexually transmitted diseases, since that is the most valuable lesson a new adult should have, but perhaps the publisher thought that was one lesson too far for this new adult novel disguised as a contemporary romance.

From the book's description:

From rainy England…

Katie never imagined her life was perfect. But when she finds herself on a rainy street, soaked to the bone and with only a cheating boyfriend and a dead-end job keeping her in town, she knows something has to change.  Which is what leads her to Iddlescombe Manor, to be companion to Lady Victoria Chalker-Pyne – the only 25 year old Katie’s ever met who hasn’t heard of Twitter, thinks camisoles are de rigueur, and desperately needs an education in the 21st century!

…to the Tuscan sun!

But it wouldn’t be an education without a summer holiday – and where better than Tuscany? Decamping to Victoria’s family villa, it’s soon clear that the valley really does have it all: sun, sea…and some seriously gorgeous neighbours. The only question is: when the weather’s this hot, the wine is this smooth and the local men are this irresistible…will Katie ever want to make the journey home?

Don’t miss deliciously funny romance What Happens in Tuscany… the perfect escape for fans of Fern Britton and Veronica Henry.

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

When Alice Met Danny is a fun book by the same author.

  

Here's the book's description:

What's in a name?

Devastated after losing her job, eternal pragmatist Alice leaves London for a new start in Devon. It’s there that she meets Danny.

Then she meets another Danny.

And then she meets Daniel – Danny to his friends…

In fact, there seems to be a Danny at every turn! Her neighbour’s a Danny; there’s little baby Danny; there’s a vicar, a windsurfer, even a dog called Danny! And whether it’s laughter, comfort, a flutter of romance or a walk along the beach, they each bring something special to Alice’s new life.

You might say it’s a coincidence. Alice certainly would… at first! But when she suddenly risks losing not just one Danny, but all of them, she begins to wonder: might there be more in a name than she ever guessed?

This review is by Candida Martinelli, of Candida Martinelli's Italophile Site, and the author of the cozy-murder-mystery novel AN EXTRA VIRGIN PRESSING MURDER, and the young-adult/adult mystery novel series THE VIOLET STRANGE MYSTERIES the first book of which is VIOLET'S PROBLEM.