Women in Sunlight

November 1, 2017

Fans will be delighted that Mayes again puts them Under the Tuscan Sun, where American writer Kit Raine is now living. The biography of a close friend that Kit is writing has begun to weigh, and she's perhaps gratefully distracted when Julia, Camille, and Susan lease a beautiful old house in Tuscany, ready for an Italian adventure that might not go as planned. At least they have Kit to lean on. Sun and fun, food and friendship--you can't go wrong.

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 1, 2018
Wish fulfillment of every kind awaits a group of aging American women--and the reader of this book--in a fictional Tuscan town.Wouldn't it be nice to live in a world of gorgeous flowers, delicious food and wine, and dear friends who keep getting better all the time while you fulfill your deepest creative potential, escape the pain of your past, get a hot new boyfriend, and learn that your few remaining problems have resolved themselves? Mayes (Under Magnolia, 2014, etc.) has just the spot for you. It's called San Rocco, and it's where Camille, Julia, and Susan decide to live instead of the Chapel Hill, North Carolina, retirement community where they first met. Instead of purchasing condos at this dull place, they rent an Italian villa for a year. Their new place is right next door to the home of more established expats, a successful author and her architect husband. At first the writer turns up her nose at the visitors, but as it turns out, they will all have the best year of their lives, and she will write a book about it. To be honest, a reader could almost skip 50 pages in the middle of Mayes' novel without even realizing it, because there is only the merest whisper of a plot. It takes too long to be able to tell the women apart, and the way the narrative switches between numerous points of view, both first- and third-person, doesn't help. But in the end, none of this matters at all. Open to any page and begin: "He also brought some Sardinian pecorino called Fiore di Monte that Julia raves about and keeps slicing and piling onto a board with slivers of focaccia, olives she baked with hot peppers, and lemon peel. They're in no rush for dinner." Who would be?The pleasurable descriptions of colors and tastes and various Italian tourist destinations, plus the poetry written by the writer character, the gardens planted by the gardening character, and the handmade paper made by the paper-making character, etc., are enough to keep this party going all year long.

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February 26, 2018
Even fans of Mayes’s Under the Tuscan Sun may have trouble with her latest, a trifle about three American women who impulsively rent a house in Tuscany for a year. They meet while touring a North Carolina retirement community: Camille, 69, and 64-year-old Susan are widows, and Julia is separated from her spouse at 59. Their new neighbors in San Rocco are expats—noted writer Kit and her longtime partner Colin have lived there for a decade. Not every day in Italy is halcyon, but it often feels that way: everyone becomes great friends and the women age like Benjamin Button. Even Kit, unable to have a baby and certainly not trying, gets pregnant. Camille, who was once a promising painter, experiences an artistic renaissance in scenes that are among the book’s most intriguing, but her instant success undercuts their power. Susan and Julia also forge innovative new careers. All the magical light that brightens Mayes’s Tuscany has the effect of canceling the shadows that might fall on her characters in a more realistic or layered story. The effect is a book that feels like a movie, but not an especially memorable one.