One Summer in Italy (by Sue Moorcroft)

(Amazon UK link)

I have gradually acquired most of Sue Moorcroft’s novels after first coming across her writing about twelve years ago. She creates believable, warm characters with interesting plots, and her stories are often set in Mediterranean countries. I was given ‘One Summer in Italy’ for my birthday a few months ago, and have just finished reading it.

Sofia is the main character of this novel. She can barely remember her mother, who died when she was little, but she adores her Italian father. He becomes ill with heart disease and she looks after him for some years. She promises him that after he’s gone, she won’t mope, and that she will go to his family village and speak to his brother.

After a prologue showing this, the story moves forward a year, to the start of summer in the Italian village of Monteliberta. Sofia is working there as a waitress at a hotel. She has some experience, and is finding herself mentoring 18-year-old Amy. Amy is eager to learn but rather naive, and doesn’t know how to handle amorous young men.

Into the scene arrives Levi, a biker in his mid-thirties who has come to stay at the hotel as a guest. He stands up for Amy in an altercation with the owner’s son, and soon becomes friends with Sofia. Guests and staff are not allowed to be romantically involved, but there’s a clear attraction on Sofia’s part, although she’s a bit concerned that he’s spending a lot of time watching Amy, who is much too young and innocent for him…

Amy, moreover, clearly has some family problems. It doesn’t take long for Sofia to learn that she ran away from home. She did not take her last school exams, she has decided not to go to university, and she and is not speaking to her parents, although she is in contact on social media with her two younger brothers. The incident that caused this to happen is only gradually revealed as the book progresses.

All the main characters, as I’ve come to expect with Sue Moorcraft, are likeable and three-dimensional. I particularly found myself identifying with Sofia. Not that I am at all adventurous, but I liked her very much.  Having said that, I did find one or two of her attitudes a bit bizarre, including her determination to try a ‘one-night stand’, which does not seem at all in keeping with her personality. However the fact that I found this rather jarring perhaps demonstrates just how real she had become in my mind.

The one quirk of this author that I don’t much like is that there always seems to be a too-detailed bedroom scene, usually when two characters ‘get together’ for the first time. When I feel as if people in books are becoming my friends, I really don’t want to know what they get up to in private. But in this book I saw it coming, so I skipped a couple of pages ahead to the morning after. Thankfully the bedroom doors remained firmly closed in subsequent encounters.

Other than that, and a tad more bad language than I’m comfortable with, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Secrets emerge from the past, relationships develop, and the book flows at an excellent pace. I thought Amy was an excellent creation: she’s impulsive and hot-tempered, prone to running away from problems. She's undoubtedly immature and somewhat self-centred, too. Yet she's extremely kind-hearted and can be unexpectedly generous. She's willing to listen to reason, at times, and by the end of the book she is beginning to see other people's point of view as well as her own.

Sofia, too, is likeable, honest and caring. She is determined to be free to travel, but can’t quite shake off her instincts to protect Amy. When she’s caught between two people she cares about, having to keep one person’s secrets from the other, for excellent reasons, she finds this immensely stressful. It fits well with her general integrity and honesty.

It’s light-weight reading on the whole; no serious issues are explored in any depth in this book. Still, there’s more than a nod towards the complexities of many families, and also the way that some homeless people are treated. There’s a side thread about a large website and possible sabotage, but it isn’t necessary to know anything about technology or social media to get at least the gist of what is happening.

By the time I was half-way through this book, I could hardly bear to put it down. The ending is perhaps a tad predictable, but I didn't mind that at all. Definitely recommended to anyone who enjoys light women’s fiction with warm, believable characters.

Review copyright 2019 Sue's Book Reviews