"A Light and Enjoyable Read"

Gemma Jericho is a doctor in a trauma unit, overworked and running on adrenaline most of the time. She has a teenage daughter, Livvie, and mother, Nonna, all living together in New York. Livvie is a modern teen with two-tone colored hair and wild clothes although Gemma puts her foot down on tattoos and piercing. Gemma had one disastrous marriage and an even more devastating love affair so now at thirty- eight, her life is her work and her family. Nonna is the typical Italian mother, old fashioned, loving to cook all those wonderful Italian foods.

Nonna is informed that she has inherited property in Tuscany. She hasn't been to the country of her birth for fifty years and decides it is time for them to go visit and see her inheritance. They stay at the best hotel in Rome where Gemma sees the handsome painter, Ben Rafael, an American who spends his summers in Italy. What a surprise to find him in residence at their villa. A further surprise was finding out that Ben Rafael claims that he purchased the villa and that it does not belong to Nonna after all. The local priest swears that the villa was left to Nonna but where is the attorney who has the will and made the sale on the villa?

In order to read and enjoy SUMMER IN TUSCANY, I had to accept the fact that this is a different kind of book than what I had previously read by Elizabeth Adler. I have enjoyed her romantic suspense books very much; this is like an offering from a different author altogether. It is a light and enjoyable read but not one of the darker suspenseful books I have associated with her.

SUMMER IN TUSCANY is written in first person with Gemma telling her story. It is a light-hearted, sometimes funny story about a woman so engrossed in her job that it takes her awhile to relax and enjoy her Tuscany summer. Although she is attracted to the handsome Ben Rafael, she is furious at him for "cheating" them out of their inheritance. I especially enjoyed Ben's daughter and Gemma's daughter as they got together in their rebellion and Nonna who has a second chance at life. Gemma can really be a klutz as she finds romance in rural Italy. The Italian people are all boisterous and happy to see their old friend, Nonna, as she sheds her old-fashioned look to become the beauty she had been in her youth. Elizabeth Adler proves again that she is a writer with a lot of talent, well able to write both light and serious books. SUMMER IN TUSCANY is an enjoyable read.

Reviewed by Marilyn Heyman
Posted October 20, 2002

Summary

Gemma Jericho is an overworked New York doctor with a handful of a teenaged daughter and a mother who worries that Gemma has no life. So when her mother receives a mysterious letter telling her about an even more mysterious inheritance in Tuscany, Gemma sees her chance: the three of them throw caution and convention to the wind and leave for Italy. Gemma hopes that a change of scenery will bring back the closeness she used to share with her daughter. And perhaps the challenges of living in a foreign country will give her mother something to worry about beyond Gemma's social life. But what they encounter there is far more distracting than Gemma expected: a crumbling old villa and a town divided. Half the residents believe that Ben Raphael, another American, is the rightful inheritor of the villa. As cultures clash, gossip soars, and intrigue unfolds, Gemma is caught up in the most disturbing and delicious trouble she's ever had. And her summer in Tuscany will change her outlook-and her life-forever.