Book Report | One Italian Summer by Rebecca Serle
If imagining yourself breezing down the Italian coast in a convertible and drinking an Aperol Spritz on a balcony overlooking the Amalfi coast is your thing, and you don’t mind a little woo woo, then this beach right is for you.
Synopsis (without spoilers!)
Katy is devastated when her mother Carol passes away. They were best friends, probably a little co-dependent, and obsessed with each other. Katy can’t imagine her life without her mother and she’s grieving hard. Everything is falling apart in the wake of her mother’s death - she hasn’t been to work in months, and she’s not sure she loves her husband Eric anymore, or that they should even be together.
One small glimmer is the trip the ladies had planned to Italy and Katy decides she’s still going to go - solo. But first, she blows things up in her marriage before hopping on that plane. Imagine her surprise when she runs into her mother in her hotel lobby, except….it’s more weird than just seeing her dead mother. Carol is standing there tanned, healthy, and roughly 30 years old.
You have my attention. Tell me more.
The premise is that Carol spent the summer before meeting Katy’s father in Italy, and they’ve always wanted to go back together. But how much truth do we owe our children? While Katy frolics around with the much younger version of her mother, the version she never got to know, she learns her mother had some secrets and was a woman before she was a mother (shocking!). The two indulge in drinks and dinners, dancing late into the night, and giggling about cute boys. Oh, and all those ambivalent feelings that Katy is having about her husband? She has to work through them while spending more and more time with Adam, a real estate developer staying in her hotel.
There’s a fun, if predictable twist in the end and Katy has to come to terms with her mother being a woman separate from her, and separate from being a mother.
All in all, a quick read and a fun beach romp with beautiful descriptions of Italian food and scenery.