Really enjoyable read. Good characters and a Good story. Well worth a read. Think others will enjoy.

This book was charming! I like books set in Rome, and the main characters were great. It was an easy read, but it did seem a little all over the place at times.

To be honest when I read the description for this book I was expecting one thing and ended up being surprised. I was expecting to just follow Anita throughout the book. However there is a selection of characters that are pretty quirky in their own right. They all live in the apartment block and all have their own secrets that are waiting to be revealed. I didn't necessarily warm up to Anita straight away but she did grow on me as the story progresses. She ends up confused after bumping into Daniel who is a definite blast from the past. There are a few characters so it did take me a couple of chapters to get who everyone was straight in my head. I think because of this there could have even been an extra book following the other characters. Due to this I didn't feel as if I got to know Anita as much as I could have. However this is only a minor thing as the overall fun and homely environment of the apartment block still manages to shine through. There is plenty of drama packed into the story that provided plenty of entertainment for the reader. Even though some of the characters reactions could be over the top it had it's fun moments definitely helped by the complicated lives of Anita and her friends.


Upstairs, Downstairs moves pretty quickly and it didn't take me long to read at all. I enjoyed the extracts from Pina's diary she was after all the ultimate nosy neighbour. Overall this story is a light hearted read so if you are in need of a distraction from your day this could be perfect.

Three and a half stars rounded up to Four!


With thanks to Melanie at Aria Fiction for my copy and invite to join the tour. This is my honest and unbiased opinion.

Upstairs, Downstairs takes place in an apartment building in Rome. It's a snapshot of life in Italy. The main characters are Daniel who is house sharing, Anita who is about 28, and is a tour guide who uses her moped to go everywhere. It seems to me like an Italian version of Sex and the City.

Despite being dialogue-rich, it's a quick read. There are lots of different conversations, from light-hearted ones to full on, heavy arguments. This is thr kind of book where much of the plot, and the detail of the book, is in the conversations people have. I felt as if I were there noseying in on the characters' lives.

That said, the descriptions of the setting and places within the book were detailled enough to keep me interested. Some of the dialogue was very intense at times, and had my interest wavering a little. The cover is colourful and fun, and I liked Anita. The synopsis. made the plot sound simple, but upon reading we definitely get more than just a small insight into what's going on in the building.

A letdown for me was that I personally wouldn't class this as a comedy, I wasn't that taken with the parts that were meant to be funny and was kind of waiting for it to make me laught.
It is romantic, though and I was rooting for Daniel and Anita and wanted to know people's secrets!

Thanks to Olivia Hart and Melanie at Aria for my eARC in exchange for an honest review.

As the cover displays to me it looked like a fun read that would or could be quite lighthearted so I was happy to jump in.

It make a fresh difference to the regular thrillers I have been reading lately so it allowed me to come in with a complete fresh clear mind which I love to do within genre's at times.

This is set in Rome, in an apartment with varying people, of varying ages which made for some readers 'nosy times' where you could peek into others lives.

We have Daniel who is house sharing, Anita who is around 28 years old, shes a tour guide and travels around nipping here and there on her moped.

There were likeable characters and some you didn't like so much as with your own neighbourhood.

Some very loud dramatic moments, arguments which may seem to be OTT but aren't some arguments like that anyhow? What one person finds as petty another would be really dramatic about and not stop shouting about how they feel.

Then there were the secrets.

We have some elements of romance, some witty laugh out loud moments and some 'raising your eyes to the ceiling' moments when you wanted to say "come on already".
The conversational ability was well sentenced although at time there were some things that didn't honestly need to be explained and repeated as the reader could work it out themselves I thought.

I did think this was a "busy" book with a lot going on and a lot of people, so sometimes had to reread a few pages and get my head together around it to keep it. On a downside, the thinking out loud moments that were written didn't lay easy with me, it sometimes confused me.
If the stories per person where spaced out or maybe as chaptered individually maybe that would work better to follow.

All in it was a fun read.

My thanks to ARIA for my copy via Net Galley

This story is very fast paced. A lot happens in a short period of time. It was also fairly short, so I read it in just a few hours.

I liked the diverse backgrounds in this story. Though most of the characters are Italian, Anita's boyfriend is Japanese. This brought different ethnic groups into the story. They would also eat at restaurants that had culturally different foods, such as Japanese or Medeterranian restaurants.

One thing that I thought could be improved was the dialogue. Sometimes the characters had a conversation that described something that they already knew. It was unrealistic, since it was only there to give information to the reader.

The voices of the characters sounded the same, so I would get confused about who was speaking in the middle of the dialogue, since they didn't sound distinct. Also, there was a lot of thinking out loud, which were thoughts in quotation marks, so I would get that mixed up with dialogue.

I would have liked to see more diary entries from Pina. She's a funny character, because she's so nosy. It would have been nice to see more from her perspective.

This was an interesting story, but I think it could have been polished to be more successful.

The Blurb :
When Daniele Bracci – a musician at Rome's Opera Theatre arrives at his new apartment, he is surprised by the warm welcome he receives from his neighbours. Giovanna however, is more preoccupied with introducing him to her daughter Anita. But what she doesn't know is that for the last two years, Anita has been secretly seeing someone else.
When Anita is introduced to the new tenant, she has the shock of her life – Daniele was Anita's first love at high school. Can she come to terms with the terrible way things ended between them?
But Anita isn't the only one with something to hide... and none of these secrets go unnoticed by Pina, the apartment gossip who writes everything down in her secret diary...

My Thoughts :
Upstairs, Downstairs is a story that centers around the residents of an apartment complex in Rome.
Daniel, who is a musician moves into the complex and gets a huge warm welcome from Giovanna, who has already set her sights on Daniel being the perfect match for her daughter Anita. Little does Giovanna know but Anita is already in relationship and has kept it secret for the last 2 years. Anita and Daniel also have history of their own.
This has drama, secrets and romance. All watched by Pina, the local gossip who keeps track of everyones coming and goings.
This was at times hard to follow, I think it has too many characters and sometimes the story line wasnt going anywhere. This was a shame as this could of been a great story if focused on fewer people.

This was the story of a group of people who lived in a group of apartments in Rome and their day to day life. They range in age, but in general are of an older age, which I appreciated. The youngest inhabitants were Anita, a very fiery, free spirited twenty eight year old tour guide who zips about on a moped, and Daniel, a musician who arrives to houseshare. There are secrets surrounding both and I suppose to jump straight in there were times I liked both, and times I didn’t, finding some of their reactions incredibly over dramatic, although at times they were funny too. If I’m honest in this book I accepted that a lot of the characters were fiery and passionate and dramatic and read on without them alienating me from the story.

Aside from these outbursts, there was an easygoing tone, very much heightened by descriptions of a veg garden they all share and regularly convene in that was bursting with vivid colours and wholesomeness and was so tangible that I wanted to be there. The apartment complex was similar, so real to me that it was like I was stepping into the ochre building walking through the stone archway with the dragons on the roof. This continued to other settings and I appreciated all the beauty the book had to offer.

There was also the secrets each of the ‘villagers,’ in particular that of Giovanna, Anieta’s mother, who was so so lovely. In fact the lovely characters balanced out the ones that weren’t so easy to like and I found myself swooning and smiling all over the place. I liked the comedy, had mixed reactions to characters, and was taken by the settings. Thanks so much to the lovely Melanie at Aria, an imprint of Head of Zeus, and to Netgalley for the book in return for an honest review.

Anita Prioetti, a tour guide specialising in archaeology and ancient Roman monuments, has been secretly dating a Japanese man for two years. Her mother was planning to set her up with the new tenant at their building, Daniel Bracci. He was a handsome musician at Rome's Opera Theatre and moved to his friend's apartment at Garbatella who received a warm welcome from everyone living at their complex.

But with all the secrets in the past waiting to be unfold, how could they keep their precious little matter on hold?

I didn't expect Daniel's character to be mop-up from the whole picture all too soon. Reading the blurb gave me the idea or expectation that the story would be about him and Anita. But it went from a different direction that was unassuming and somehow I didn't see coming. New characters kept popping up that added a bit of the twist.

There were times I felt that the narrative was superfluous between the narrator and Pina's stating the events on her diary. Though there's a lot going on with the story, from Daniel's return to Allie's lifelong jealousy and superficial friendship with Anita, what stood out for me the most was Anita and Mizuki's romantic relationship.

Upstairs, Downstairs by Olivia Hart is a snippet of an everyday life from people who knows each other and have the sense of bond and camaraderie. I think one of the reason I got this vibe from this was that, the story was written by a total of eight authors.

This is a light quick read that went perfectly while waiting for the sunset, holding a cup of tea and eating one of those luscious slice of banana, peanut butter cake. Every character had their own spotlight moments which sometimes was a bit disjointed or confusing from the story as a whole but the humor kept it very entertaining.

***Thank you to Melanie Price of Aria Fiction, to NetGalley, and Olivia Hart for providing me an ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review!

A breezy romp guaranteed to chase away the autumnal blues, Olivia Hart’s Upstairs, Downstairs is a fantastic page-turner that is absolutely perfect for a lazy afternoon.

One of the biggest worries about moving into a new apartment is whether or not you will get on with your new neighbours, so when musician Daniele Bracci moves into his flat, he is relieved when he is welcomed with open arms by all the inhabitants in his apartment block. As a musician at Rome’s Opera Theatre, Daniele soon finds himself cast as an object of interest and scrutiny by his neighbours – especially Giovanna who is so keen to marry her daughter Anita off that she loses no time in trying to throw them together. But unbeknownst to Giovanna, Anita and Daniele had already met and were madly in love in high school before a very bitter break-up. And that is not the only secret Anita has been keeping from her Mamma – it turns out that Anita has been secretly seeing someone else in the last two years. But why is she keeping her relationship a secret from Giovanna? And is her relationship going anywhere? Or is she stuck in a romantic dead end?

Anita gets the shock of her life when she comes face to face with Daniele after all these years. When they were in high school, Anita and Daniele had been madly in love, but when fate had torn them apart, Anita had found it increasingly difficult to come to terms with the acrimonious end to their relationship. Can Anita move on from the past and let bygones be bygones? Or has too much water gone under the bridge for Daniele and Anita to heal from old wounds that still hurt?

Fun, humorous, engaging and enjoyable, Upstairs, Downstairs is a great read that kept me glued to its pages. Full of wonderfully realised characters, pathos, drama and heart, Upstairs, Downstairs is a terrific tale of old loves, new beginnings and second chances guaranteed to make readers smile. The only complaint I had is that there are a lot of characters and sometimes it was difficult to keep track of who was who and how they relate to the story, but on the whole this was a fabulous book I couldn’t bear to put down!

Told via multiple perspectives, readers lead themselves into the lives of apartment dwellers in Rome. Easy and quick read. However, too many ideas that went nowhere and muddled the story. Thanks for the reading opportunity.

Best described as a snapshot read, this multiple perspective, multiple character story is set in a small apartment complex in Rome. Each of the apartments’ residents has a say in the story – some move rapidly with plenty of action, others are more slow reveals of just moments in time. Overall, the story was pleasant to read, if disjointed, as each character’s story was broken into specific moments. A gay couple, a single older man, a young family with a particularly nosy wife, a photographer who is subletting his space to a musician, and the widow with her adult daughter. The sense of everyone being involved in and commenting to the comings and goings and moods bring a slight sense of insularity and small town feel, even in the midst of a very busy Roman suburb.

There are romances and secrets, drama and everyday life playing out on the page: and while it wasn’t a read in one sitting story that demanded my attention, the story was reasonably well-written, even as the multiple cut ins and out to display all the perspectives and moments was horribly distracting. It was hard to find any one character that jumped out as much or as clearly as Anita – but she also captured the most page time with her hidden romance with a Japanese man several years her elder, the return of her first love and her toxic ‘friendship’ with one of the most vapid and vindictive ‘friends’ I’ve ever met.

While I think this story would have been far more successful with less ‘input’ from the multiple characters as they competed for attention with loosely developed stories and no measurable growth, the stand out moments from the story were the immature and often overly emotional reactions from Anita – and her constant state of confusion. Perfect for a pool-side read where attention can be split between an acceptably written if not wholly engaging story and life as it happens around you.

I received an eArc copy of the title from the publisher via NetGalley for purpose of honest review. I was not compensated for this review: all conclusions are my own responsibility.

Review first appeared at <a href=”http://wp.me/p3OmRo-9mk/ “> <a> I am, Indeed </a>

Lively tale of a group of neighbours in Rome. Funny and well written featuring a quirky bunch of characters.

This is a light quick read about second chances set in an apartment building in Rome. Anita and Daniele were teenage sweethearts but they're grown up now and well, can they come back together (should they?). There's lots going on here, with Pina the local gossip tracking all of it. That's my quibble- there are many characters and many possibilities. Nonetheless, this was an entertaining read and I thank Netgalley for the ARC.

Thanks go to Netgalley and the publishers for an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Rome where we meet and get to know the residents of apartments within an old courtyard.

This was an easy read but there seemed to be a number of characters and parts of the story that didn't really go anywhere. It was almost as though the Author was trying to fit as many of her ideas in as possible but in doing so the book lost some of the 'oomph' it could have had if some of these ideas were further developed.

That aside I did enjoy it, especially the latter stages of the book.