Pack your bag and find your passport, Alice Clayton and Nina Bocci are going to whisk you away to Rome for quite the romantic adventure.
I get nervous when books are referred to as rom-coms because they can descend into OTT (over the top) silliness. This is not that book, thank the baby Jesus. I came into this book after reading a few rather intense books and this one was PERFECT. It’s sweet, hilarious and totally sexy. FYI, This book is NOT erotic, it’s still extremely sexy…thanks to one very sexy Italian man. I truly enjoyed the friendship between Avery and Daisy, it was pitch perfect. Clayton and Bocci tempered the intensity of the reconnection of Avery and Marcello with humor and I ate it up!
As the synopsis tells you, Avery finds her husband in flagrante with his secretary and decides she is done with him. Now, seeing her husband banging his secretary with her own eyes pushes her to make a decision to get the hell out of dodge. She, as you know, hightails it to Rome. Avery comes to realize that finding her husband with his secretary is only one small piece of so many wrong things about her marriage. Catching him in the act really pulls the blinders off of her eyes and forces her to see how she contorted herself to fit into the life that he wanted them to have.
Enter Rome and the true love of her life, Marcello. I don’t know about you but I can’t even say that name in my head without the Italian accent. Marcello is absolutely fantastic, he’s just a really well-written character and while he is hurt by Avery he wears his heart on his sleeve.
This book could’ve been an angst fest but it wasn’t. The connection between Avery and Marcello is too deep to deny and Clayton and Bocci allow it to play out without throwing a bunch of unneeded obstacles. Now, Avery is still married and she has to deal with that. There were times where I felt like she kind of buried her head in the sand a bit where that was concerned. Emotionally, she made her decision regarding her marriage and upon reflection understood the mistakes and choices that were made. But the actual physical dealing with the end of the marriage took a little longer. Again, this was not a huge issue for me but it was in the back of my mind nonetheless. During all of this, Avery reflects upon the beginning of her relationship and marriage with her husband and in doing so, explains to Marcello what happened all those years ago when she met him (Marello) in Spain. Avery discovered her art passion very early in life and pushed that passion aside, somewhat unintentionally when she married Ben. Marcello, fosters her passion in many things…including art. 😉
Anyhoo, the setting of Rome was incredible and Avery’s profession of art restoration was absolutely fascinating. I loved reading about her job and the history of the architecture and art in Rome. It is my hope that we get to see more of Avery and Marcello and the beautiful setting of Rome in subsequent Broads Abroad books. But, I suspect no matter where Clayton and Bocci’s books are set they will be laugh out loud, completely entertaining and swoon-worthy in every way.
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Giveaway
Want to win some books?
You can win 3 books from Gallery!! The last book in the Beautiful series, simply titled BEAUTIFUL (Gallery 10/4), the first book in Anna Todd’s spinoff series, NOTHING MORE (Gallery 9/20) and Nina Bocci & Alice Clayton’s co-authoring debut novel ROMAN CRAZY (Gallery 9/13)
*US entrants only*
Head on over to our Facebook page to enter!
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