Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press I received a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

If humor can be found in Mussolini’s Italy it’s on these pages. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Being historical fiction, I got a glimpse into what Italy was like under Mussolini’s rule and how divided of a country fascist Italy actually was.

Abandoned as a child, Sally is adopted and eventually sent off to school in Switzerland. Years later she finds herself a gossip columnist in Rome when war breaks out. Being an American she now is on the run.

This is a powerful saga of love, friendship, loss and betrayal. Ultimately, it is the resilience of the human spirit that stays with you long after the last page is turned.

I look forward to reading more from this author.

I liked parts of “Sally Brady’s Italian Adventure” very much. But I also had problems with the novel, particularly toward the end.

It’s a two-plot story set in the United States and Italy during the Great Depression and World War II. The first plot stars Sally Brady, an 11-year-old girl from Iowa whose parents send her alone to California to find work and send back money. She meets and is befriended by successful Hollywood character actress Patsy Chen who sends her to the best schools. When Patsy’s career hits the skids, she becomes a secret gossip columnist for the Hearst newspaper chain and moves to Europe to report on the goings-on of high society. Sally goes with her and takes over Patsy’s column when she decides to marry and return to the states. Sally is still in Italy when war breaks out. Now an enemy alien, she spends the war helping others and falling in love, while attempting to avoid capture and imprisonment.

The second plot features Lapo, an Italian author and the scion of a family of successful hatmakers, who has installed his American wife, Emily, and their children in the castle he’s bought (and spent all his money on) just outside the Tuscan city of Siena. As war approaches, he sends Emily and his daughters back to the US while he remains in Italy with his son, Alessandro, who is required to serve in the Italian army. In order to make sure Alessandro receives the safest assignments, anti-fascist Lapo must agree to write Benito Mussolini’s biography. But Lapo’s time for writing is limited. A local fascist official has decided to house a large group of political prisoners at the castle. Now, everyone must set to work farming to feed themselves.

Author Christina Lynch writes well. She is especially successful in depicting the worlds she seeks to portray: 1930s Hollywood, “high society” in pre-war Europe, wartime Italy, etc. I thought many of the historical details she included, especially about Italy, and her explication of Italian fascism were quite instructive.

Her characters are interesting, even compelling at times. They face dangers and hardships designed to keep readers turning the pages. Somewhat á la Herman Wouk (“Winds of War,” “War and Remembrance”), she integrates various historical figures into her plot, most notably Benito Mussolini and his son-in-law, Foreign Minister Count Galeazzo Ciano.

But some of the plotting seemed far-fetched and frenetic—almost operatic—and, at times, confusing. Plus, there were a number of all-too-convenient coincidences. This, coupled with the repeated injection of discourses on morality and politics and some not-very-subtle attempts to draw parallels to our own current events, often prevented me from becoming absorbed in the story.

My thanks to NetGalley, the author, and the publisher for providing me with an electronic ARC. The foregoing is my honest and independent opinion.

Christina Lynch has gifted her readers with a truly unique WW2-era heroine. Sally Brady’s talents could have graced a battlefield general, or a james Bond-ish master-agent, but instead she is a vagabond cum POW who manages to slither down the slipperiest of slopes and emerge whole.

I loved her spirit;
I loved her heart; and,
I loved the fairy tale ending which she richly deserved.

Netgalley provided me a complimentary copy of this book in return for a candid review.

I was asked to read “Sally Brady’s Italian Adventure.” Because of the title, I was expecting a light-hearted romance, but instead, found an historical tale of Italy during WWII.

We meet Sally who is abandoned at a young age. She ends up being taken in by a Hollywood celebrity. That leads her to Italy, which she watches evolve to fascism under Mussolini.

Ironically, I started reading this book at the same time my partner and I booked our first trip to Rome. Hence, I enjoyed reading about Sally’s adventure while thinking of my own.

Parts of the book are slow but I thought Sally was an intriguing character which kept me reading. I felt I learned a lot—so much has been written about Germany during WWII but this was only the third novel I have read that focuses on Italy.

Thank you to NetGalley for a copy of this book in return for my honest review.

If a book about Mussolini's Italy can be called fun, this is that book. Sally Brady is sent away from her family at age 12 -- they couldn't afford to feed her & she was old enough to get a job. She lands in LA, then is picked up on the streets by a movie star (NO! it's not that kind of book!!) who adopts her and takes her along on a grand adventure to Europe -- parties, fine clothes, fine food, rich "friends". This all seems like a dream until the US joins the war and Mussolini declares all Americans enemies.

The parallel story is about a man and his family trying to keep his dream of a vineyard alive as Italy falls apart. Of course, these stories will intersect eventually. The story sometimes stretches the imagination and it is a bit predictable, but that just doesn't matter. There's plenty to learn about Mussolini's Italy, along with some thinly veiled messages about how quicky extremism can change life as we know it. But the story is really one of resilience, ingenuity, individuality, and (of course) romance. Very enjoyable.

PS -- it's very refreshing to read something that does not descend into graphic violence and sex, and there's little (or no) profanity. And the story does not suffer, so this is a book you can recommend to anyone.

Sally Brady was a great character, I really loved getting to know her as a character. It was what I was hoping for from the plot and it was really well written. I loved the aspect of this and thought it was a beautifully done story. The rest of the characters were what I was hoping for and did what I was expecting them to. I enjoyed how Christina Lynch wrote this and can't wait to read more from the author.

“Your babbo is useless,” Pappone had said to Alessandro when he was fourteen. “He doesn’t know how to do anything. He inherited money. That’s it. He’s a pathetic parasite.” “He can write a villanelle,” Alessandro replied.

This was an interesting take on a civilian, pseudo-journalist traveling around the world and getting stuck in Italy during WW2. The first half of the book was a little slow for me but I liked the 2nd half. It showed the resilience of the Italian people and how hard it was to figure out who to trust under the division and betrayal of Fascism.

Honestly, though, it had sort of a weird feel to it, some wit and humor but sparsely mixed in here and there. It gave Sally an irreverent feel which I think is what it was the book was going for, but inconsistently. It was also hard to get a gauge on other characters in the book because of all the superficiality in circles she was in, and there were so many changing locations, characters, and even quickly changing attitudes that made it hard to keep up with or get invested in. It sort of made a lot of it feel a little surface-y.

Thanks to Netgalley for the advanced copy of this book. All opinions expressed are mine alone.

Kindle Copy for Review from NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press.

I received a free, advance copy of this book and this is my unbiased and voluntary review.

A young woman goes to Italy and finds herself on a unexpected journey of life and love as goes from being abandon as a child by her parents. She seeks herself in this sweeping story as she is swept off by an Italian man.
An epic read set in backdrop of war in the 1940’s and the effect on the people and culture. A sweeping read of another era.