Stella Mia

January 1, 2015
Sarina Amato left her husband and young daughter, Julie, to return to Sicily to care for her dying mother. She never came back. Julie, now married and contemplating a family of her own, is still haunted by her mother's abandonment. In her father's basement in Queens, New York, she finds an old trunk containing a Sicilian folk costume, a diary, and, she hopes, the answers she needs. Julie is not the first one Sarina left. She ran from an abusive father in late 1960s Sicily, leaving behind her beloved mother and three younger siblings. She struggled, living on the beach with a gypsy family and eventually singing at a fancy hotel. She fell in love with a stranger, and their whirlwind romance barely slowed long enough for her to discover that he was the hotelier's son. A gorgeous setting makes up for some choppy, inelegant prose. In Chiofalo's third novel, after Carissima (2013), the mountains and islands of Sicily, the fabulous clothes of the late sixties, and the emotional power Sarina feels when singing stand out, but the framing device of Julie's quest is unsatisfactorily resolved.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)