The Summer Villa
“Narrator Penelope Rawlins rises to the challenge of bringing to life a cast of characters with hugely different backgrounds. She seamlessly switches between the Irish, English, and American accents of the protagonists, even in scenes with fast-moving dialogue. She successfully characterizes the various male characters, never once giving any clue as to who the villain in the story is until the very end. Rawlins’s authentic-sounding pronunciation of names and places helps to create an atmosphere full of Italian charm, as well as suspense and intrigue.”
AudioFile
An Irish Times Bestseller
Three complete strangers, each in need of escape, were thrown together during a carefree summer of sunshine, food and culture at Villa Dolce Vita—a rambling stone villa on the Amalfi Coast set high above the Bay of Naples amidst lemon groves and tumbling bougainvillea. Now, years later, they are reuniting, but quickly realize their memories of that summer are very different.
When a little white lie becomes the story of your life, what if the truth comes out?
For three women, it’s a life-changing trip: one finds the man of her dreams, another discovers inspiration amidst Italian food and culture, while a chance encounter with a handsome local ushers in the ultimate life change for the third. But most importantly, it’s the beginning of a deep and lasting friendship between all three.
Now years later, Kim Weston—entrepreneur and owner of internationally successful Italian food and lifestyle business, The Sweet Life—has bought and restored the tumble-down villa to its former glory, and plans to reopen Villa Dolce Vita as a wellness/cultural retreat—a fitting honor to the root of her business inspiration.
To celebrate the villa’s grand opening, she and her Italian business partners are throwing a huge three-day party; flying a group of family, business and media contacts to the Amalfi Coast to join in the celebrations. And most importantly, the (still) close friends who started the journey with her: Annie and husband Nate, whose love story began at the villa, and single mum Eva, whose son was the result of an ill-advised Italian fling.
But in the run up to the planned weekend in Italy, it becomes clear that not everyone is happy about the party, nor are they on board with such ambitious plans for the location. And, as Villa Dolce Vita’s grand relaunch draws closer, old memories and past secrets come to light, and the three old friends are forced to question if anything that happened on that first fateful trip to the villa is at all what it seemed.
The story is told in dual narrative (then and now) intertwining each woman’s story between the first stay at the villa and their current lives building up to the party, will be interspersed with Italian recipes/inspirational quotes relating to Kim’s “The Sweet Life” philosophy.
Praise