The Night Villa - Goodman

The Night Villa

Carol Goodman

After a fatal school shooting Professor Sophie Chase finds herself on a trip she never expected to take.Quickly she finds herself in Italy with an ex lover, a computer mogul, several other academics and her favorite student, Agnes. While on the beautiful isle of Capris Sophie starts to find herself, and the subject of her research Iusta, an intriguing slave girl living in Herculaneum when Vesuvius erupted, are both growing in unexpected ways. As her research progresses and mysterious appearances start happening
Sophie will have to learn that the truth isn't always what it seems.

Let's pause for a minute to look at a very dangerous piece of rock. 

If you've read Carol Goodman before you're probably aware that most of her books have three things 1.) ! rouge relationship that may turn out better than the heroin could ever anticipate. 2.) The Classics (usually Latin) or art. 3.) Murder. The Night Villa has all three. As a suspense/mystery (which if pressed is what i would classify most of Goodman's books) The Night Villa delivers. My predictions, which usually turn out correct were hopelessly wrong in this transatlantic who-done-it. Structurally, Goodman delivers, there is just the right amount of suspense, intrigue and false information to keep readers interested while still moving the story forward at a good pace.

Now for the story, or stories, is actually more accurate. Goodman uses her tried and true method of using her broken heroine, in this case Sophie, to narrate the majority of the book, but for the necessary glimpses into the past there is a lost scroll belonging to a man named Phineas, who spends most of his time talking about Iusta. Sophie's story is compelling, she's searching for information, and a way to heal the wounds left by her crazy ex. Iusta's story is different. True, she's "fighting" for her freedom and she's a historically interesting case, but her story running against the impending eruption of Vesuvius, while giving it a sense of urgency also makes it seem pointless against all of the deaths that are about to occur. Overall not my favorite Goodman novel, but if you're interested in crazy cults, Latin or Pompeii it's worth checking out. Good for a summer read to transport you to the clear sea side!

Other Goodman Reviews:
Arcadia Falls
The Lake of Dead Languages
The Seduction of the Water

I Loved, I Lost, I made Spaghetti

I Loved, I Lost, I Made Spaghetti

Giulia Melucci

I Loved, I Lost, I Made Spaghetti is 2 parts relationship memoir and 1 part cook book. Giulia gives her reader the rundown on her late blooming love life while associating all of her failures with men to her successes in her kitchen.

I got this for my birthday from a friend and was intrigued, as I had never heard of it. Within a few pages she had me sucked into her ever failing love life and my mouth watering with a recipe for amazing blueberry muffins. Giulia Melucci obviously writes from the heart. She is honest about her own downfalls as well as the men she has dated. These men make a colorful cast of characters from your typical commitmentphobe to two novelists with peter pan complexes, an alcoholic and a man twenty years her senior. 

The concept has been done before, but Melucci's love afair with food gives her story something special. Fellow foodies can relate to her love of fresh ingredients and finding the perfect new kitchen accessory. Her recipes are filled with as much heart as her search for love and leave your mouth watering.

I Loved, I Lost, I Made Spaghetti may not be for everyone, but for those who do enjoy it will find themselves laughing out loud and heading to the grocery story for pasta.

My Review
4/5

The Blind Contessa's New Machine

The Blind Contessa's New Machine
Received from Goodreads, Now on Sale

Carey Wallace

Carolina Fantoni is an interesting girl. Despite the time frame she spends a lot of time alone at her man made lake. She, like the others in town harbors a secret hope that she will win the heart of the handsome and charismatic Pietro. Turri has all the locals shaking their heads. He muses about unimportant things and conducts odd experiments. Carolina and Turri become fast friends, watching the rain together and coming up with various improbable experiments. That is until she is married and quickly goes blind.  While their relationship will blossom, Turri makes her a machine to write with making her the envy of the town.

My cookie cutter description is a lot like how The Blind Contessa's New Machine reads. It's interesting, but very predictable. For a true story it does alright by it's characters. Carolina is hard to understand, her blindness doesn't seem to bother her. Nothing really seems to bother her until she can't see Turri. Pietro is easier to understand, he's beautiful and privileged and because of that he has a kind of arrogance that only comes out when all other charming have failed.  Lastly there's Turri. I loved Turri, he was excentric and didn't mind being the talk of the town. Even so he acknowledged his reputation as a crazy man making crazy machines.  He's a treat to read because he is so full of wonder.

The story itself is nothing special. Girl is friends with Boy, Girl likes other Boy, Girl and Boy 2 get married and Girl starts and affair with original Boy. Place everyone in the early 1800's and make the Girl blind and that is The Blind Contessa's New Machine. Even though it's fairly simple it was an enjoyable read. Carolina's blindness left me pondering my own vision. She had so much to overcome once she lost her sight, especially since she was in a new house, and I wondered how I'd hold up in the same situations. Her dreams were less of a pleasure to read. There were far to many and they were all about her running around her house and her lake and looking for Turri. They got really repetitive and at some points were happening ever three or four pages.

In short, if you like historical fiction, novels set in Italy or novels the deal prominently with blindness, The Blind Contessa's New Machine is worth picking up, just don't expect to much from it.

My Rateing:
3/5

Juliet

Juliet
On Sale 8.17.2010

Anne Fortier

The story begins with one Julie Jacobs. Julie has been entranced with Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet her entire life. When her Aunt dies and leaves her a letter explaining that she is in fact Giulietta Tolomei and that her mother died while investigating a family treasure Julie/Giulietta leaves on the first plan for Siena, Italy. While in Siena she learns that family ties run deep, and that no only were Shakespeare's most infamous lovers real, she is related to the real life Juliet.

When I got Juliet in the mail last week I was both excited and a little concerned for what it would turn out to be. The story itself seems forced. Julie is not likable. Having her goals in live grow from her desperate need to be different from her sister Janice made them both petty and unrelateable.

The story of Siena, and the flashbacks to 1340 were helpful and interesting, but they felt like, with a little more detail they could have been their own novel. This was also a case where I would get to an end of a chapter and be upset that there was a drastic change in time and situation. It would only take a few pages to get back into the groove of that specific story but still, it's never fun to "suffer through" a chapter just so you understand what is going on. I was frustrated all through the middle of the novel, when there was little being discovered and much whining and disbelief.

The romantic elements were definitely the strongest in both storylines. The Romeo and Juliet love through time was less creepy then I thought they would be. In a way modern day Giulietta's journey to love is sweet and understandable, and while it's hard to get into a 1340's mind frame, the original Romeo and Juliet story has its own charms.

All in all, a good summer read, but it took far longer and a lot of suspension of disbelief to get through.

My Rating:
3/5

A huge thanks to the LibraryThing early review program for the copy.