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 .

February 15, 2011
A betrayed wife collides with two biscuit-baking, elderly Italian sisters who double as matchmakers in a bumpy romantic fantasy.

Even adultery can lead to happiness, suggests Lynch (House of Daughters, 2008, etc.) in her off-balance tale combining whimsy, sadness, tragedy and farce. When hyper-efficient wife and corporate hotshot Lily Turner discovers a photograph in her husband Daniel's closet revealing he has another family in Italy, she is forced to realize her 16-year-old marriage has been drained of magic by the unhappiness arising from her five miscarriages and a failed adoption. The daughter of an abusive alcoholic mother, Lily has also started drinking and, during a binge, books a flight to Rome to track Daniel down in the Tuscan village of Montevedova. Here she encounters Violetta and Luciana, the cantucci-baking founders of the Secret League of Widowed Darners, which matches up lonely hearts. Lily, earmarked for a handsome widower, is also befriended by Francesca, Daniel's illegitimate daughter who is going through an unhappy childhood similar to Lily's. Other parallels abound: pairs of sisters, melancholy men folk, adulterous offspring. In a credulity-expanding conclusion, Italian clichés are reasserted and broken hearts mended.

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

May 1, 2011

When Lily discovers a photograph (in his golf shoe, of all places) of her husband, another woman, and two children, she realizes he's been living a dual life. Turns out he has another family--in Italy--so Lily decides to head over there to see what's up. She ends up in Tuscany under the care of eccentric old widows, who make it their business to fix affairs of the heart. This quaint, charming novel by the author of House of Daughters and By Bread Alone will appeal to readers who enjoy their summer fiction set in romantic locations.

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.