In Five Years was one of my top books from last year, so my expectations were high for Rebecca Serle's next book, and to my delight I was not disappointed ! As with IFY, don't let the pretty cover fool you into thinking that it's a light beach read. This book, both heartbreaking & heartwarming, is about loss, grief, self-discovery & growth - all set against the beautiful backdrop of a small seaside town in Italy - and of course with the classic Rebecca Serle surreal twist. It's completely transportive, I could almost feel the warm wind and taste the delicious food & wine along with the main character. I highly recommend this ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ read !

A huge thanks to the publisher & NetGalley for offering me an advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

I loved this book. I stayed up all night reading it. I have to be honest, I didn’t see the magical realism of the book coming when I first started it, which usually isn’t my thing but I still loved it!

I was lucky enough to win a copy of ONE ITALIAN SUMMER by Rebecca Serle in a Shelf Awareness giveaway. Thanks for the early look, and have a great weekend!

My full review will appear in Booklist. I think this book will appeal to readers of Faye, Faraway and anything that is set in Italy. I have read a lot of books set in Italy for Booklist, and it is such a lovely place to set a book. This story is a love story between a mother and a daughter, and if that is your cup of tea, I highly recommend it. Serle's books are great for book clubs too.

Beautiful, magical, and atmospheric! I traveled to the Amalfi Coast (Sorrento & Positano) a few years ago for a significant birthday (really to check the Eiffel Tower/France off my bucket list, and this was a detour). The Amalfi Coast is one of the most stunning, serene, and special places I’ve ever visited (off season). I dream of returning someday to this enchanted coast. When I read the synopsis for Serele’s book I was ecstatic; not only did I love In Five Years, but I knew this book was resonate more with me because I had been there.

Overall, what I enjoyed most were all the very descriptive pages filled with locals, restaurants, foods, sights, and scents that brought back all those warm, magical memories. The mother/daughter relationship plot didn’t resonate as much with me until nearing the last 25%, when the reader is let on to a little surprise element/twist in the story. I loved this and wish it was brought out a bit earlier. Otherwise, I found the strange “soul-mate” bond between Katy & her mother a little peculiar (i.e – Katy & her mother not being soulmates with their husbands but with each other?) It just felt a little contrived and unnatural.

This is the PERFECT BEACH READ and everyone needs to add this to their 2022 TBR!

✨ Review ✨ One Italian Summer by Rebecca Serle

Katy's mom just died and she's left reeling without her best friend and confidante. They had planned a trip to Positano together, but Katy sets off alone. There she finds not only the spirit of her mom but an embodied 30yo version of her. She receives this unexplainable opportunity to meet her mom when she's the same age as her now, and learn more about what she used to be like.

Cw: parent death, cancer

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫
Genre: contemporary fiction
Location: Positano, Italy
Pub Date: March 1, 2022

First, the descriptions of food, places, and landscape in this book are to die for. It brought me back to my travels in Italy and let me live vicariously. It was worth it for this alone!

I loved this premise of knowing your parent on their younger years...before they got bogged down in the responsibilities of parenthood. There was something so magical about this.

She brilliantly threads this narrative of interacting with her 30 year old mom along with Katy's struggles over her own grief, what she wants from a partner, her explorations of Italy, and her figuring out what she wants next. The story was layered and emotional and truly beautiful. I'm so glad I read this book!

Read this if you like:
⭕️ Drooling over vivid descriptions of Italian food and views
⭕️ Mother-daughter family stories
⭕️ 30-year-old find-yourself / coming-of-age stories

Thanks to @atriabooks and #netgalley for an eARC of this book!

I want to start by thanking NetGalley and the publisher for my eARC in exchange for my honest review. One of life's most important challenges is to determine what to hold onto and what to let go. After reading One Italian Summer l have completed a wonderful literary vacation to Positano. Though not a style of novel l would normally choose it was an intense heart achingly beautiful lesson in choosing a way forward at a point where you may not feel you can move on.

When Katy’s mother dies, she is left reeling. Carol wasn’t just Katy’s mom, but her best friend and first phone call. She had all the answers, and now, when Katy needs her the most, she is gone. To make matters worse, their planned mother-daughter trip of a lifetime looms: two weeks in Positano, the magical town Carol spent the summer right before she met Katy’s father. Katy has been waiting years for Carol to take her, and now she is faced with embarking on the adventure alone.

Fantastic love story of Katy falling in love with herself, her life and what could be. Set on the beautiful Amalfi Coast, Positano is romantic, majestic and plays a role in the story. With a bit of time travel involved, this story is even better than Five Years!

One Italian Summer
by Rebecca Serle

I read this amazing story in one sitting and I can't wait to review this title tomorrow!
Review Coming 😊

Edited on 11/13/21
Atria Books,
Thank you for this beautiful eARC!
I really enjoyed In Five Years and this was just as great!

This story is about relationships - between mother and daughter, husband and wife and more.
I'm loving how well Serle brought this story straight to life!
It was like I was standing there watching this all unfold. Her writing is something special.
Our characters are so well drawn they could walk right off the page.
This story is loaded with emotions and takes those emotions right to the edge of melodrama without crossing over.
With likable, interesting, well developed and insightful characters I couldn't help but love Katy and Carol.
They are so relatable and genuine that it is extremely easy to get emotionally attached to them and be fully absorbed in
This story is something magical and stunning.
It's special and the message it sends is beautiful!
Engaging, touching, heartwarming, and absolutely beautiful story I'm sure will touch most of everyone. As it should!

Thank You again Publisher, NG and Rebecca for this gorgeous ebook copy!

Rebecca Serle gives us another great title that will capture the reader immediately. A great follow-up to "In Five Years'. Would recommend for book clubs.

It took me a day to stop weeping after reading this lovely novel! Kate's mother dies and she decides to take the trip they planned together to Italy as she is in mourning and is disillusioned by her own marriage to Eric. Arriving, she discovers the beauty, appreciates the food, and is taken in by the welcoming of all who approach her. But when she meets Carole--who could be her mother's younger twin, her life turns upside down as they become friends and begin to confide in each other. Kate always viewed her mother as her best friend, so when Carole reveals things that don't seem to match up with what Kate believes, she is unsure what to do. Enough about plot. Just go in blind and be prepared (have the tissues handy) to re-think your ideas about family, forgiveness, longing, and respect. This is one of those novels that will resonate with me for a long time; it was totally worth the teary eyes!
Thanks to NetGalley for this ARC!

Katy and her mother plan an Italian vacation, returning to the place her mother (Carole) once loved as a young woman. Sadly, Carole passes away shortly before the trip. Reeling from her mother’s death, Katy decides to take the trip alone to find herself and finally see the place her mother had been talking about for 30 years. But imagine Katy’s surprise when her mother shows up on vacation… only 30 years younger.

If you’re a fan of Rebecca Serle’s writing, you’re probably going to like this book. Somehow, she manages to come up with the most interesting plot lines over and over again. And we all know I love magical realism, which she is so good at. I only wish the story was fleshed out a little bit better - but it was a very quick read which was nice.

TW: death, cancer, adultery

"Every day the world is born again. Every day the sun rises. It is a miracle, I think. A simple, everyday miracle. Life."

If you love books that transport you to the most beautiful, romantic destinations (like The Star-Crossed Sisters of Tuscany or People We Meet on Vacation ) or writers who infuse their work with just a hint of magic (think Cecilia Ahern or TJ Klune), then you’ll love One Italian Summer.

"I cannot yet conceive of a world without her, what that will look like, who I am in her absence… My mother, you see, is the great love of my life. She is the great love of my life, and I have lost her."

This effervescent, lightly-magical read transports you to the Amalfi Coast, where Katy Silver is on a solo vacation, still reeling with grief after the death of her mother. Somehow, inexplicably, the Italian town of Positano seems to exist outside of time, and Katy encounters a 30-years-younger version of her mother, Carol, there--still alive, young and vibrant, with no idea who Katy is!

"Somewhere in time she is walking, and somewhere in time I am walking, too, and we will find each other on this path. We will be here together."

Suddenly, the vacation that Katy imagined would be a time of grieving transforms into an opportunity to spend one last summer with her dearly-loved mother, though Carol has not yet grown into the woman Katy remembers. It's an opportunity for Katy to learn, for her mother's sake and for herself, that "mom" and "wife" are only facets of an identity, and never the entire thing...

"I realize how much of her life I was always missing. She knew me completely, but it didn’t work both ways; it couldn’t. Look how much life was lived before I ever even arrived. Look at who she was before she met me."

The setting is the book’s knockout feature, hands-down. Rebecca Serle has absolutely nailed coastal Italy and the dreamy foods, the delicious wines, the beautiful decor & architecture, and the stunning sights of the coastline. Her writing is atmospheric and makes for the perfect beachy, vacation read!

"I don’t see how you would ever leave. The magic of Italy seems to be in its ability to connect to some time out of time, some era that is unmarked by modernity. There is so much peacefulness in being present, right here."

The plot of the book wasn’t quite what I expected; there was significantly less Katy-and-Carol-time than I thought there’d be, and a fair bit more cheating-on-your-husband than I would have liked. (Why is that so on-trend for romances and contemporary fiction lately? Can no one stay happily, loyally married anymore, not even in books?!)

"The blessing of this life, this one, brilliant, beautiful life. All the loss and anguish. All the joy that makes it possible. The tender connections, the fragility, the impossible odds of being here, now, together. The choice of continuing to make it so."

But the ending wrapped up sweetly, and I really enjoyed the time-bending twist. I also appreciated the theme of self-discovery, and how Katy ultimately made peace with her circumstances and learned to live with joy and gratitude in the life she had. 3.5 stars, rounded up to 4!

——

A huge thank you to Rebecca Serle, Atria Books, and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

I am so sorry to say, I just couldn’t get into this book. I tried several times, but it just wasn’t for me.

Thank you Netgalley and the publishers for the ARC for an honest review.

Another great read from Rebecca Serle. Thoroughly enjoyed the world and characters. A fun easy read - devoured it in one sitting.

First of all, I was sobbing by chapter 3. Anyone who knows me knows I cry at books. But this cry, this was from actual heartache. My heart actually hurt at what happened.

Katy is the only child of two parents, and married to Eric. She and her mother made plans to go to Italy together. But things changed and Katy ended up going alone. In Italy, even more things changed. What transpired was an eye opening for Katy, and helped her to decide how she wanted to live her life.

I don’t want to give too much away, but this book is amazingly beautiful. I don’t give many 5 stars, but would give this 10 if I could.

This book was the perfect read. I finished it in one day with happy tears streaming down my face. Rebecca Serle’s writing is beautiful, gripping and leaves you wanting to highlight and re-read certain lines over and over again. I will now read everything Rebecca writes.

One Italian Summer had a hint of magical realism as Rebecca incorporated time-travel into the premise. In this book, Katy’s mother, Carol, has just died and Katy takes the trip they had planned to Italy, alone. She is hoping to learn more about her mother on this trip and the reason she found Italy so special. Katy ends up finding her mother on the trip, just 30 years earlier. Katy gets to see and befriend her mother as a 30-year-old and gets a glimpse into her mother’s life before Katy knew her. Back when she was her own person, a lively and carefree young woman instead of only an unselfish wife and mother.

Katy and Adam are two of the main characters in this book and they were both so relatable and had great character development. I found myself wishing I was friends with both of them because so much of their life and thoughts I resonated with and learned from. This book was a love letter to motherhood, overcoming grief and rekindling lost love.

This book also helped feed my wanderlust and made me want to revisit Italy as soon as possible. Rebecca paints a pictures of Italy so beautifully that I could see it for myself and it felt as though I was transported for a day. This story will make you crave to learn more about your parents’ past and will allow you to look at every relationship with fresh eyes.

You will definitely want to pick this book up as soon as you can! It was one of my favorites I’ve read this year.

For anyone who has been to Italy or dreams of one day making the trip, this is a book you will enjoy. The scenic beauty, the food, the wine and the warmth of the people all come alive in a magical summer visit.
The term magical is used deliberately because there is an element of magic that permeates the story. A young woman grieving for her recently dead mother flees to Positano on the trip she and her mother were planning to take together. It will be a time to mourn, but also a time to rethink her priorities and find the strength to continue her life. Although she has been married to a loving husband for 7 years she acknowledges that her primary relationship has always been with her mother. Now with her mother gone, she is bereft..
The shock of the story occurs soon after arriving when she meets a vivacious young American woman and is startled to realize it is her mother as a young woman. Why have they been brought together? Should she reveal what she knows? How will it change her future?
There are wonderful evocative scenes for the reader who loves Italy, but throughout most of the book I found myself bothered by this unnatural closeness of the mother and her adult daughter. The relationship was almost suffocating at times and I couldn’t completely buy into the story. Fortunately the resolution is a satisfying one and the pleasure of your Italian holiday will prevail

Rebecca Serle is a master of tugging on your heartstrings. Like In Five Years, this book centers around dealing with grief and a long illness and there is a magical realism element as well.

Katy is reeling from her mother's death. Her mother was her best friend and her guide for all of life's twists and turns. She goes on the Italy trip meant for both her and her mom to try to get space from her grief and her marriage. While in the exquisitely described Positano, Katy is astonished to meet a younger version of her mother. Torn between confusion and wanting to embrace seeing her mother again, Katy strikes up a friendship.

This is a short, engaging book that lacks a little bit in character development. I was a little bit confused by how it all ended-- particularly in Katy's romantic choices that seemed apropos of nothing. However, I truly reveled in the descriptions of the food and the Italian coast. I would recommend this for fans of You Were There Too by Colleen Oakley.

Great fun summer read when you are looking for something that is lite and breezy. I would definitely recommend for your next beach read!