Sally Brady is used to overcoming the odds. Her parents, having five children, sent Sally to California in 1931. After living on the streets for a while, Sally happens to jump into the car of a Hollywood movie star. That movie star decides to adopt Sally. When the movie star gets divorced, about five years after adopting Sally, she moves to Europe and takes Sally along. That is how Sally ended up in Italy when it closed its borders and detained any press/foreigners that remained. After helping a young Jewish girl escape, Sally is stranded in Italy. Will Sally be able to escape?

I am a sucker for a good World War II story and usually read everything I can about that war. So, when I saw that Sally Brady’s Italian Adventure was up for review, I knew I wanted to read it. And I am glad I did. This book was terrific.

Sally Brady’s Italian Adventure is a fast-paced book. The pacing of the storyline was perfect for this book. There was some lag towards the middle of the book (around when Sally was in prison), but it didn’t affect my enjoyment of this book.

Sally Brady’s Italian Adventure takes place mainly in Italy. But there are excursions to Prague, Switzerland, and the United States.

The main storyline of Sally Brady’s Italian Adventure is centered around Sally Brady and, you guessed it, her adventures in Italy (and in life). Sally was a larger-than-life character who could think fast and use her wits to keep herself alive in wartime Italy. This storyline captured and kept my attention.

The author featured two other storylines in Sally Brady’s Italian Adventure. They centered around Lapo, an Italian writer and farmer, and Alessandro, Lapo’s son and a soldier. These were the more serious of storylines, and they were the storylines that I enjoyed reading the most. The writer had Lapo and Alessandro witness the horrors of an unstable dictator and a war neither wanted to be involved in. Those two storylines were as well written as Sally’s.

The author told Sally Brady’s Italian Adventure through the 1st person POV of Sally and the 3rd person POV of Lapo and Alessandro. Usually, I’m not too fond of it when there is more than one POV and more than one storyline. But, in this case, I liked it.

I liked Sally. The author did write her, at first, as a silly young girl who didn’t take life seriously. But, as the book went on, I saw glimpses of a more serious Sally. It wasn’t until she met Clio and helped Clio’s granddaughter escape that Sally’s true nature showed through. She was one of the bravest characters in the book.

I liked Lapo. As a parent, I understood why he did what he did. I would do anything to ensure the safety of my children too. I felt awful every time I read his chapters because I could see his prison being more and more constricted by Mussolini.

Alessandro had the most exciting storyline, in my eyes. He was anti-Fascist but had to swallow his beliefs while in the military. Alessandro couldn’t understand, at first, why Lapo was kissing Mussolini’s butt, which made him angry (I would have been too). His time in the military almost destroyed him. The scene where he finally meets Sally is pivotal because it shows how low he was.

The end of Sally Brady’s Italian Adventure was interesting. I felt awful for Sally when she finally went home to her family. Her father was a piece of freaking work, that’s for sure. There was a twist at the end of the book that surprised me. I was with Sally when I thought a certain someone had died. To have him pop up like that had me react as Sally did.

I recommend Sally Brady’s Italian Adventure to anyone over 16. There is mild language, fade to black sexual situations, and moderate to graphic violence.

Many thanks to St. Martin’s Press, NetGalley, and Christina Lynch for allowing me to read and review Sally Brady’s Italian Adventure.

in 1931, at the age of eleven, Sally, a dust bowl refugee from Iowa abandoned by her parents, is “adopted” by Hollywood actress Patsy Chen. Some years later, following her divorce Patsy leaves her flailing career for Europe, working as a gossip columnist for the Hearst syndicate, while also looking for her next, preferably rich husband – a venture she encourages Sally to also embark on. Sally helps Patsy in her assignments, attending parties, hobnobbing with the rich and famous, picking up scoop on the dalliances, and scandals and reporting on them under a nom de plum. In 1941, after a selfless act leaves her stranded in Mussolini’s Italy with no papers Sally is left to fend for herself and gets a close look at what it is like to live amid a fascist regime. Her story intersects with that of Lapo , a writer and farmer from Siena, who is chosen by Mussolini to ghostwrite a glowing biography and Lapo’s anti-fascist son, Alessandro, who despite his father’s best efforts is unable to avoid being drafted into Mussolini’s army, and eventually stationed in Prague.

The author masterfully weaves the three threads of this story together to give us a remarkable story. However, it did take a while to fully engage in the narrative. I felt the segment about Sally’s experiences as a gossip columnist was a tad too much and should have been condensed. But after the initial twenty-five percent of the novel, the story does pick up and I thoroughly enjoyed following the narrative, eager to see where the story would take us. There is an element of farfetchedness in certain aspects of the story, but this does not detract from the reading experience.

The author gives us an insightful look into the historical and political backdrop and the impact of the horrors of war and fascism and its aftermath. The author describes the contrasting worlds of the glitz and glamor of the lifestyles of the affluent with their parties and dalliances, almost clueless to the fact that Europe was on the brink of war and the plight of civilians trapped in the Fascist regime, many of whom were not supporters of the ideology being propagated at the time, such as Alessandro, a pacifist conscripted to fight in a war that he did not support, defending a regime and a leader he believed represented evil.

Alessandro's internal conflict between his beliefs and principles and his duties is excellently depicted as is Lapo’s struggles to keep himself and his family safe, forced to follow the dictates of the regime while loathing what they represent, even being forced to house political prisoners on the orders of the local officials. The author injects a healthy dose of humor and satire (the salient points of Il Duce’s biography had me laughing out loud) into the narrative. I loved how we see Sally evolve from a shallow person (though we cannot blame her for this, given that she was nurtured to develop her persona) into a strong, resilient woman, willing to take risks to help those in need of assistance. Sally’s sassy attitude and upbeat spirit might often come across as misplaced or a tad unbelievable at times but you can’t help but admire how her indomitable spirit and ability to use humor to cope in difficult situations, often manipulating said situation in her favor. In that I found Sally to be an endearing character.

Overall, I enjoyed Sally Brady’s Italian Adventure by Christina Lynch. Many thanks to St.Martin’s Press and NetGalley for the digital review copy of this novel. All opinions expressed in this review are my own.

Sally Brady's Italian Adventure is the first book I've read by Christina Lynch, and I will definitely be on the lookout for new releases from her. When I started to read this book, I thought the lead character and storyline were rather shallow. But I kept reading anyway...and soon it was just about impossible to put it down and walk away!

In 1931, Sally's father sent her from the dust bowl to Los Angeles to find work and send money home to her family. Never mind that she was only a child of 11; she was set loose on her own in the world. Desperate and hungry, she jumps into a car with movie star Patsy Chen, who ends up adopting her. Well, not officially, but close enough. Sally and Patsy attend glamorous parties all across Europe. Patsy becomes a gossip columnist known as the Bon Vivant, but Sally takes over the job from her; she was doing all the work anyway. Patsy eventually heads elsewhere, while Sally remains in Tuscany, Italy. But then war comes to Italy, Sally can't get an exit visa, and she becomes a prisoner. What's a young woman armed with lipstick and gossip skills to do?

The story is told from three different viewpoints: Sally, Lapo (an Italian writer turned farmer) and Alessandro (Lapo's son, an antifascist who is forced to serve in the Italian army). Sally is impossibly cheery and takes things as they come. At first her humor and actions made her seem like a flibbertigibbet and insubstantial. Did she take anything seriously? However, as the plot moved along, she truly became a likable young woman of strong character. When she was being released from prison, she chose to stay behind so a friend could be released in her place. She faced hardships with a smile. Sally went from being a lightweight character to someone I liked and respected. Lapo was a wonderful character. He married a woman from the US and had three children. He and his wife were working on their estate in Tuscany, trying to bring it back to life. He was a writer, but didn't have much time to write. He sent his wife and two daughters to Chicago to keep them safe during the rise of fascism. His son Alessandro stayed behind with him, until he was forced to joint the Italian army. Mussolini wanted someone to write his "autobiography", and he chose Lapo to do so, because he loved a book that Lapo wrote. Which, actually, he didn't. But he used the "invitation" to write to have his son stationed with the Italian army in Prague, where he thought Alessandro would be safe. Lapo struggled to combine his horror of fascism with what he must do to keep his son safe. My heart broke for Alessandro, who absolutely hated fascism and what it was doing to his home. He was sent to Prague and had to deal with moral ambiguity; what was right and what was wrong wasn't always clear. He was a gentle soul stuck in a world beyond his comprehension. Supporting characters were all terrific; some turned out surprisingly different from what they first appeared. Most WWII stories focused on Hitler's campaign, so it was eye-opening to learn more of what Italy's place was in the scheme of things. Don't let the slow beginning and Sally's apparent thoughts and actions stop you from reading. Keep with it and you will be greatly rewarded.

I received an ARC of this book courtesy of the publisher and NetGalley. I received no compensation for my review, and all thoughts and opinions expressed are entirely my own.

SALLY BRADY’S ITLAIAN ADVENTURE by Christina Lynch is a sweeping and emotional story mainly set in wartime Italy as the rise of Mussolini and fascism reaches a dangerous peak. In 1931, eleven-year-old Sally Brady is sent off by her parents in Iowa to find work in California. All alone and starving on the streets of Los Angeles, a chance encounter with a Hollywood movie star leads to Sally being adopted by the star and taken on a whirlwind adventure in Europe. By the time she is twenty, Sally is making the rounds of the European party scene, secretly sending gossip about Europe’s rich and famous, back to a US news organization. You would never know the hardship and tragedy this young woman has faced by her witty and charming persona. The story is told from three perspectives, Sally’s, and those of Lapo, an Italian man with an American wife, three children and a dilapidated estate in Tuscany and Alessandro, Lapo’s son, who gets conscripted into the Fascist army. Although the story is full of wit and often even humor, the atrocities of fascism and World War II are clearly relayed by all the characters. The story is well-plotted and engaging and speaks to many themes that are still timely today. I really enjoyed Sally’s character and the relationships she developed with those around her. I highly recommend this unique and interesting twist on a World War II story. Thank you to the author, publisher and NetGalley for the chance to read and review an early copy.

Sally Brady was quite a surprise. I expected a light summer read. The Italian Adventure was quite a bit more! Sally Brady bounces from opportunity to opportunity. She leaves her small midwestern town in 1931 when her family runs out of money and the means to support her. She travels to Hollywood, and lands in the lap of a movie star who finds a place for her to work. When the two find themselves traveling around Europe reporting on the lives of the rich and famous, Sally Brady is determined to find a husband with a castle to support her. Her basic integrity and sense of humor take her down some curious paths as she navigates wartime Italy on her way to a happily ever after.

Sally Brady's Italian Adventure is a great book to immerse yourself in on a long hot summer's day.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Abandoned by her parents at the age of eleven, a girl from the dust bowl finds herself in California. There she is adopted by Patsy Chen, a movie star, who names her Sally. When Patsy’s marriage fails and movie roles dry up, she and Sally head to Europe. Through her connections, Patsy is hired as a gossip columnist. As a teenager Sally is rarely noticed by guests at social events, making it easy to observe and report to Patsy. She eventually takes over writing the column. Sally falls in love with Italy, but Hitler and Mussolini are coming to power and the social scene is changing. After Pearl Harbor Mussolini orders the expulsion of Americans from Italy. For some reason Sally is denied the required exit visa and her life changes from parties to a a true adventure of survival.

Christina Lynch alternate’s Sally’s story with the story of Lapo, a writer and the owner of an Italian estate who is married to an American. Lapo’s farm is struggling and his son Alessandro is facing mandatory military service as the country goes to war. He has no choice but to work with the fascists if he is to survive and and care for the workers on his property.

Sally faces life with a smile and a joke. She has associated with royalty and the cream of society. When she is imprisoned as a foreign national and possible spy, she uses those connections to secure her release. After convincing authorities that she is a correspondent she is imprisoned with the other correspondents, who are to be expelled. She sacrifices her place on the train out to help a Jewish refugee. Hiding from the authorities she learns to survive on the run. She also discovers that she is not alone and people are willing to help her. Clio, a woman in her nineties, shows her the beauties of Siena. Sergente Favagrossa is charmed by Sally and helps her escape. Lapo and his son will also help her on her journey and help her discover the importance of family. Sally is a wonderful character who will make you laugh. Her story is also a lesson in history that will bring you to tears. When Sally’s adventure ends her story will stay with you for a long time. I would like to thank NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for providing this book for my review.

All I've got to say is wow! Well, actually, there is more than that... If you're tempted to bail anytime in the first half, let me assure you, you will not regret continuing on. The first half for me was slow with just enough interesting bits here and there to keep me going. This was like a roller coaster.... The long, boring, slow, steep, climb to the summit, and then you are plunged with rapid speed into this story on a roller coaster ride of an adventure with so many ups and downs, twists in turns and is worth slogging through every second of the slow beginning. This story starts in the US with 11 year old Sally. Through some incredible circumstances, Sally ends up in Italy with her adoptive mom. Her brains bravery, and wit serve her well when she finds herself embroiled with a cast of interesting characters, including Mussolini in the middle of the war. This is not a true story or a memoir, but the character of Sally is based on a compilation of strong women and in one amazing story!

This book started out kinda sad with Sally being sent away to find a job . She was only 11, who does that to a family member?! It has dual timelines and I found Sally’s story much more interesting, even tho it read like one big party for most of the book. I’m just not sure what to think about this book.
Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the early copy

Sally Brady’s Italian Adventure by Christina Lynch is a sweeping piece of historical fiction, set mostly in Italy during WWII. The story alternates between 3 points of view – Sally, a young gossip columnist, estranged in Italy as war breaks out, Lapo, an Italian writer and farmer, whose been commissioned (forced, really) to write an autobiography of Mussolini, and finally, Lapo’s his son, Alessandro, aged 17, an anti-fascist but drafted into the Italian arm.

This was a fascinating aspect of WWII I haven’t read much about and Lynch did such a lovely job moving between the horrors of war and the wit and charm of the characters. I could see and feel the goodness in the midst of despair. I felt like I was with Sally as she rode her bike through Italy and so admired her bravery. And the ending was especially lovely.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own. I really enjoyed this book. IF you like wartime books this book is for you. There is so much going on and I don’t want to give spoilers so all I can say is read this book.

I was immediately interested in Sally and her unorthodox way of getting to California and being "adopted". Soon after getting to Italy, I began to lose interest. Maybe it was the politics, maybe not, I'm not sure. It's not a bad book, it just wasn't for me and that's ok. We can't give them all 5 stars!

Thank you @stmartinspress and @netgalley for the eARC in exchange for a review!

It has been ages since I’ve read historical fiction which is a shame because it’s one of my favorite genres. I was excited to read this one as it takes place in Italy instead of Britain, Germany or France as a good chunk of WW2 historical fiction does. Unfortunately, it didn’t quite live up to my expectations.

The title is slightly misleading because in my head I read it in a Bilbo Baggins style “I’m going on an adventure!!” But much like the LOTR, the “adventure” Sally Brady goes on is traversing Italy during wartime and stumbling through a fascist ruled country and wartime tragedies.

The story is told from 3 POVs: Sally, Lapo (an Italian estate owner) and his son, Alessandro who is forced to serve in the Italian military when he turns 18.

The first half of the story was a bit of a challenge to get through. I wasn’t super invested, and it felt like I kept getting puzzle pieces that didn’t fit together (in fact Lynch mentions in her author’s note that this book was not based on any one person but many stories she read about in her research) When the puzzle pieces (the characters) were eventually all connected it felt very forced and rushed. I also didn’t know what to make at all with the bits that were meant to be comedic 🤷‍♀️.

The writing was great at transporting the reader to Italy and to that time period, but otherwise it fell flat for me. You will have to decide for yourself on this one! It releases June 13.

I haven’t read many books set in Italy during WWII – generally, those are set in England or France – so I was eager to read this story. In it, Sally Brady, who was raised by a Hollywood movie star and became a gossip columnist, finds herself stranded in wartime Italy.

I liked reading about the Italian countryside and how the war impacted the citizens of Italy under Mussolini’s control. Much like the famed French Resistance, Italians also worked against their ruler, which I loved reading about.

Sally’s character, however, never had me fully invested in the story. Sure she was a clever American who could get out of sticky situations with her charisma, but she was rather frivolous throughout most of the book. I did like the love story and how she eventually grew up, but she never captured my full attention.

DNF at 40%
I was interested in Alessandro's story, but cannot stand Sally. Singing things better in the prison? No. She just keeps saying things for a reaction and trying to scandalize everyone because she's so fun and fancy free, ugh very annoying

Sally Brady’s Italian Adventure was quite the adventure. For the first half of the book I felt like I was reading an outline that had not been fully fleshed out. Once we see the connection of Sally and Alessandro, the adventure was much more interesting. It was interesting to read how Italy fared during WWII. I am ready to visit and have my own adventure.

Sally is definitely a character to root for. She seems written for the movies or at least a multi-part streaming series.
She has echoes of Jeannette Walls' characters from Hang the Moon and Half Broke Horses. I especially loved learning a bit about WWII Italy. Will definitely recommend for summer reads.

I really loved the beginning of this book, I loved Sally and found her story really interesting and charming! However by the middle of the book, I had lost interest many times and found myself getting lost in the details of the Italian government. I also found the pacing a bit messy. With some scenes being rushed through and then other uninteresting scenes seeming to go on for ages. Unfortunately this one was just not for me, but I do think there is an audience for this one and maybe it was just a mix of my mood and timing that didn't work for me!

4.5 rounded to 5

I almost DNFed this book, and I'm so glad I didn't.

The author gives us Sally's POV first person, and several others in third person. The third person segments kept me at a distance all the way through (though toward the end some chapters were engrossing) but Sally's first person voice was smart, irreverent, a bravura attempt at a thirties Bright Young Thing hanger-on, though with some twenty-first century expressions here and there that made me want to go back to Nancy Mitford et al for a dose of the real McCoy.

But I persisted, and once the war started, and Sally--whose childhood was as wild as anything I've read in old Vaudeville memoirs, for example--tried to get out of Italy and go home, the story became absolutely riveting.

Here, the author was at her best, especially in Sally's segments, depicting in scarily believable fashion how a blowhard like Mussolini could grip a country in his Fascist fantasy, drawing Italians into killing each other for specious reasons and tossing out the painfully learned lessons in civilization that Italy has been inching toward over its long history. Fear as well as greed being the great motivator. Certainly something to keep in mind in this country.

•Sally Brady’s Italian Adventure 🌍•

📚Genre: historical fiction
🤔Rating: 🍺🍺🍺.5(3.5/5)
#️⃣ of pages: 368
👯‍♀️ read if you like: stories that make you lol, books about war & rich character driven stories
Publishing Date: June 13, 2023

👍🏼:
•seriously made me laugh out loud SO many times
•very interesting time period/setting. Not one that I’ve often read about or even really seen books about
•I LOVED Sally. Talk about a girl who went THROUGH it & came out on the other side!

👎🏼:
•it took me a WHILE to like this book, tbh. It was super slow for me at first. I wish the second half of the book would’ve been the first half 😅
•I really wanted more of the connection with Sally and Alessandro in the middle of the book

Overall…
Sally Brady was an abandoned child adopted by a movie star & eventually found herself stuck in Fascist-era Rome while Mussolini rules. Told from 3 POVs, this story goes through the 1940s in Italy and gives you perspectives from Lappo (an Italian writer) and his son Alessandro (an anti-Fascist).
This book truly would’ve gotten 4 stars or higher from me if the first half would’ve been even close to as good as the second half was. With historical fiction, I feel like it’s important to set the scene and grab the reader quickly. The three POVs didn’t cross & come together until around 70% and I would’ve liked to have seen this happen sooner. It was so interesting to me because I didn’t know a lot about this era and setting. When I really became invested in the book, I couldn’t stop! This is a very character driven book and I must admit that I’m typically more of a plot driven girl.

All in all though, I’d say push through the first half and read this one! It had humor, romance, history & some tears 🇮🇹

Special thanks to NetGalley and St Martins Press for sharing this ARC with me in exchange for an honest review!

I love historical fiction so, I had to request this one. I will say the title is cute and this book was not. This book is a serious book about war and hard times. This book was heartwarming but also heartbreaking. Like others have said a lot of the things one of the characters does feels unbelievable but, I’m not a history buff. I also am not a huge fan of multiple pov but, it works okay in this book. Three stories are woven together pretty well in this historical fiction.