Dolci Di Love

February 14, 2011
After New York executive Lily Turner discovers a photo of a beautiful woman and two children, clearly taken in Italy, she realizes that her husband, Daniel, has a secret second family. The blow is doubly painful since Lily and Daniel are childless. In a drunken impulse, Lily tracks Daniel via Internet to the Tuscan village of Montevedova and books a ticket. After a few comical moments of culture shock, Lily finds accommodation above a bakery run by two elderly sisters. Unbeknownst to Lily, the bakery harbors the Secret League of Widowed Darners. Originally founded as a sewing circle in the 1940s, the band of lively widows quickly discovered that mending broken hearts was much more useful (and more fun) than mending socks. Lily becomes their new project: perfect, they decide, for wealthy, handsome widower Alessandro. Sparks fly, but Lily's feelings for Daniel are still unresolved when a chance meeting with Daniel's precocious six-year-old daughter complicates things: Lily falls in love with the little girl. She's also in love with the bakery and Tuscany by the time she finds Daniel. Although there are no huge plot surprises, Lynch's (House of Daughters) Tuscany is lovingly rendered and populated with characters whose vitality is contagious in this perfect combo of travel and romance .