Review: A romantic and character-driven mystery.
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 06 16, 2014
3.5 stars.In Italian Summer, Italian-born Mina Calvi returns to her hometown after having been living in California for ten years. She’s carrying a heavy heart; mourning the loss of both life and love. I think it’s safe to say that Mina is lost, adrift in her own life.Once back home in Veneto, Mina finds that not much has changed in the small town. She soon bumps into a former classmate and befriends her upstairs neighbor, Emilia. And, before she knows it, a familiar face is on her doorstep – a welcome harbor in the personal storm swirling around her.Mina is a sympathetic character, but I felt a little at a loss having not read her previous two adventures. The author hints at and references previous happenings, and I could kind of piece together the general picture, but there were some confusing points as I was reading. That said, Maria Grazia Swan has crafted a laid-back story with threads of romance, elements of two unsolved mysteries, and a canvas of characters whose stories intersect with surprising results. The narration is not necessarily the cleanest or the best written, but it is engaging and Maria Grazia Swan lets her characters shine. She creates people who readers want to know more about and that, above all, keeps us turning the pages.