Product Description

Who is Aurora? Every time she becomes a new Mrs (three times when we last counted) she becomes a new woman. Her stepmother thinks Aurora is impractical, romantic and dreamy. The fact that she gets married so often only goes to prove it. 'Every woman owes it to herself to get married once, but you don't have to make a habit of it.' But now, all alone...? 'Aurora, given the chance to be true to herself, rather than to her trio of husbands, turns out to be a world-class minx. After Hugh's funeral, she goes to Italy to visit her old radical-feminist friend, Leonora, now the abbess of the Brigandine convent in Padenza. True to the tradition of convent-educated girls in fiction, Aurora flings herself into a voluptuous life of lunches and lovers. Chiselled phrasing and dancing plot ...a sizzling firework display of a book' Sunday Times.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #519627 in Books
• Published on: 2006-01-19
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 240 pages

Review
'Starts with a gun, ends with a bullet, and takes in a northern Italian gastronomic tour ... This is Shirley Valentine meets Room with a View: an eccentric and enjoyable romp to take to Italy and savour' Guardian 'Food, flowers, buildings, clothes, sex, all portrayed in the tender, jewelled colours of a Florentine fresco' The Times 'Michele Roberts is on sparkling form ... A story that is nimble on its feet, and plays cleverly with form and expectations' Financial Times 'Chiselled phrasing and dancing plot... A sizzling firework display of a book' Sunday Times 'A deliciously black and breezy affair, the perfect antidote to dull winter days. The scenario is that of a standard romance... but don't be deceived: Michele

GUARDIAN
'This is Shirley Valentine meets Room with a View: an eccentric and enjoyable romp to take to Italy and savour'

FINANCIAL TIMES
'Michele Roberts is on sparkling form with her ludic 11th novel...The plot is constructed like a set of magic boxes'

Customer Reviews

most disappointing book
I went to listen to Michele Roberts at the Edinburgh book festival last year and bought this novel afterwards as it sounded like an interesting, high class chick lit kind of book. Chick lit it was, high class it was not. It was derivative, FULL of badly spelt Italian words (I am Italian. I know) and inaccuracies (like saying that Le Cinque Terre is on the Tuscan coast, when it is actually in Liguria) and at times, extremely coarse and vulgar, which just didn't fit in with the rest of the wishy washy, bland narrative. Characters were not engaging and the story line was rather trite and unappealing. It achieved the results of putting me off this author.

Very disappointing
I had to apologise to the book group last week as I had recommended this book, having heard that she was a great writer. Our book group has been going for over 12 years and this is the only book that every single one of us disliked - never have we been so unanimous in our opinions.
We could not engage with the heroine, found the plot flimsy, aimless and trivial and the characterisation was poor.
On a positive note the descriptions of food and family warmth were good and there were some beautiful descriptive extracts, but not enough to redeem the book. When we read the flattering blurb on the back of the book we howled with laughter. As a final comment one member said, 'At least it was short.'