Varina Palladino's Jersey Italian Love Story

 

A lively, fun-loving novel about the exploits of a large, unwieldy and passionate Italian-American family on the brink of rebirth and change.

 

A big, bold, brash Italian-American family is at the heart of Varina Palladino’s Jersey Italian Love Story. This fun-loving, bittersweet novel by Terri-Lynne DeFino orbits around Varina Palladino, a hard-working, widow. Now happily-single, the 70-year-old manages the family’s local Italian food specialty shop in Wyldale, New Jersey.

 

Many characters and plotlines are threaded through Varina’s life. This includes Varina’s spry, 92-year-old mother, Sylvia, whose is determined to find a romantic match for Varina. With the help of Donatella--Varina’s n’er do well daughter; Sylvia’s granddaughter--the two Palladino women secretly advertise Varina’s singlehood. The boldness of their plan backfires at the same time Varina’s three adult children face their own life challenges. This includes Dante, running the family construction business and flirting with divorce, and Davide, a hair salon owner, who is at odds with his erratic, younger sister, Donatella, who just can’t seem to get her life on track. There’s also good-natured, reliable Paulie, once the Palladino’s neighbor, now their border, who was pseudo-adopted by Varina after he came out as gay and his own family disowned him. When Varina, on her birthday, decides to celebrate by fulfilling her lifelong dream to travel, her decision becomes just one of many life-changing transitions made by each member of the family.

 

From the passions of love and family fireworks, to authentic recipes, Italian superstitions and expressions, DeFino (The Bar Harbor Retirement Home for Famous Writers) serves up a hilariously colorful, contemporary epic where lovably flawed characters and lively Italian details will wholeheartedly charm readers.

 

Varina Palladino’s Jersey Italian Love Story by Terri-Lynne DeFino

William Morrow & Company, $27.99 hardcover, 9780063228436, 416 pages

Publishing Date: February 14, 2023

To order this book on INDIEBOUND/Bookshop.Org, link HERE

 

NOTE: This review is a reprint and is being posted with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (March 3, 2023), link HERE

The Patron Saint of Second Chances

A small, diminishing village in Italy--facing financial ruin; threatened with having the entire water supply cut-off--faces a hilarious revitalization by the prospect of an upcoming film shoot.

Community loyalty and the power of taking pride in one’s hometown--doing anything to save it--is the central theme of the very funny debut novel, The Patron Saint of Second Chances by Christine Simon.

Prometto, Italy (fictional) has 212 occupants, and one resident, Signor Giovannino Speranza, believes he has the power to change things—or at least he hopes so. Speranza is of the old school and traditional values. He is a 62-year-old husband, father and grandfather—a vacuum cleaner salesman-repairman disillusioned with young people always on their phones and social media and eagerly determined to leave town. He regularly turns to the saints to guide him and dispel his disappointments and arguments with God. Having always taken pride in Prometto, he’s become something of the local mayor.

Now that the town, in dire financial straits--the budget doesn’t have enough funds to restore the plumbing system and faces having the water turned off, forcing residents to relocate--desperate Speranza concocts a story about how Dante Rinaldi, a heartthrob movie star, is planning to film his next blockbuster near Prometto. The invented news takes off and injects a hopeful jolt of enthusiasm that rallies the town and beyond, including young people and even the local parish priest, while boosting tourism and local businesses in the process. But what will happen when Dante Rinaldi doesn’t descend on Prometto with a film crew and news gets out about the ruse Speranza has crafted?

Simon’s fun, clever story offers a hilarious literary escape. Readers will smile and laugh out loud at her well-drawn cast of quirky characters, those who long--and will do anything--to be a part of the film and its production. The plot snowballs, twisting in madcap ways with turns as sharp as the narrow roads that wind their way through the lovable charm of Prometto.  

The Patron Saint of Second Chances: A Novel by Christine Simon

Atria Book, $27.00 hardcover, 978-1982188771, 360 pages

Publication Date: April 12, 2022

To order this book on INDIEBOUND, link HERE